What is the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act?
The No Electronic Theft (NET) Act criminalizes sound recording copyright infringements occurring on the Internet regardless of whether there is financial gain from such infringements. A copyright is infringed when a song is made available to the public by uploading it to an Internet site for other people to download, sending it through an e-mail or chat service, or otherwise reproducing or distributing copies without authorization from the copyright owner. In civil cases copyright infringement can occur whether or not money was exchanged for the music, and in criminal cases there only needs to be a possibility of financial loss to the copyright holder or financial gain to the infringer. The NET Act sets penalties for willful copyright infringement.
