The Law and Norms of File Sharing

This Article examines how law influences social norms. It seeks to understand the characteristics of law that influence opinions about the social acceptability of regulated behavior. To this end, the Authors examined the practice of sharing digital files of copyrighted material, file sharing, by conducting an experiment to identify the characteristics of copyright law that influence perceptions of social norms about unlawful file sharing. Even though college students surveyed believe that peer-to-peer file sharing is common practice, they thought the practice would become less socially acceptable if violators were subject to shaming penalties. They also expressed less willingness personally to engage in file sharing if violators were subject to revocation of university network privileges. These results suggest that both formal and informal sanctions associated with copyright regulations influenced perceptions of file sharing norms. At the same time, law did not influence perceptions of file sharing norms in the absence of sanctions, nor did making salient the moral justifications for refraining from unlawful file sharing. This Article discusses the implications of these results both for the theoretical debate about the expressive function of the law and the policy debate over unlawful file sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]