About Leechers, Seeds and Swarming – The copyright implications of BitTorrent

BitTorrent is a new type of P2P technology with which users download small pieces of a file, and then start uploading these small pieces to each other. This essay analyses whether using BitTorrent amounts to infringement of copyrights or related rights in different European jurisdictions. Although the essay will look specifically at BitTorrent, the arguments in this essay may apply to other P2P programs with similar technical properties.