By walking on the map, mp3 files are transferred from remote file servers to North America. Files are received by computers located in either the United States or Canada, depending on the participant's actions while standing on the map. When an mp3 is received locally you will hear it play through the speakers.

In Canada, file sharing, such as this, is legal. It has been recently ruled that both downloading music and putting it in a shared folder available to other people online is legal. The reason for this is that the user is not actively distributing music or advertising its availability. Copying for personal use has traditionally been allowed in Canada. To repay artists and record labels for revenue lost by this activity, the government imposes a fee on blank tapes, CDs and even hard disk-based MP3 players such as Apple Computer's iPod, and distributes that revenue to copyright holders

If the participant causes a file to be transferred to the United States, however, they have clearly broken the law since file trading of copywritten material is illegal under the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Current penalties range between $750 to $150,000 per song downloaded or shared. The DMCA has become an instrument with which the power of the federal government can be used by corporations to restrict file sharing amongst the citizens of the United States.

With Mapster, files are transferred across boarders while agency is transferred to the unwitting individual who is clearly not accountable for his or her actions. In other words, a person walking across the map transfers an mp3 to North America in violation of national copyright laws. This person has now, with his or her body, broken the law by moving files across boarders. But could this person be held accountable?