Copyright infringement?
Entertainment today is mainly provided though a digital spectrum. Purchasing and streaming videos and music off of sites like Amazon, Spotify, Netflix, and ITunes, are some the ways of acquiring digital media legally. Production companies and record labels are making a great deal of money in today’s society; but with unauthorized peer-to-peer systems illegally downloading music and movies, there is a dramatic change in the potential profit for these industries. The RIAA claims (Recording Industry Association) “that more than 2.6 billion files of music were illegally downloaded every month on unauthorized peer-to-peer (P2P) systems" (Roda, 2003). Companies are trying to protect copyright infringement by implementing digital encryption technologies and strict laws that prohibit tampering these encryptions.
The Beginning
The era of internet piracy began in May of 1999 when a college student founded a website called Napster that allowed users to upload and download music for free through connected computer networks. "In the first four months of its initial release, Napster hosted roughly 1 million users" (Bach). After one year, however, the service became so popular that the Napster community expanded to an unprecedented 20 million users. Though it was eventually charged for copyright infringement and lost a series of legal battles, Napster had already introduced the world to internet piracy. "Napster, in just two years, caused the music industry, specifically in compact disc sales, to steadily lose roughly $500 million in revenue in each preceding year" (Bach). The damage that these rogue websites have done to the entertainment industry by promoting and hosting file sharing services has been catastrophic....
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... have rigged their software and hardware to make it less accessible to illegally download their files. However, there will never be a way to completely assure that digital piracy will be non-existent. Therefore digital piracy will continue to be exercised. Unless consequences become more severe, digital piracy will continue for generations to come.
When content is made easily available through services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime or Spottily, the traffic to piracy sites dwindle. This is because of that fact that when content is made easily available at a reasonable price people tend to stop pirating. “The best way to combat piracy isn’t legislatively or criminally but by giving good options”(torrentfreak.com). The services that provide the content enable the user to go onto secure sites free from virus and also takes away the consequences of fines that may arise.
The damage done to the music industry as well as genuine consumers of the music industry is huge. Online pirates are costing the music industry millions and millions of dollars in lost revenue. The chances of these pirates being caught are constantly increasing. Even though the anti-piracy organizations have made considerable progress, their current anti-piracy methods will not completely stop online piracy. Until these organizations can increase copyright protection, and inform the uneducated pirates who believe their points are valid, they will be fighting an up hill battle, no matter how many lawsuits they file.
Since 1999, the situation around music has been changed drastically. In that year, the novel software “Napster” was released. With this software, people became able to get any file they want easily, sometimes illegally. Some musicians and people in the entertainment industry have tried to exterminate that P2P “Peer to Peer” technology. But it looks as if their efforts are in vain. People are going to use P2P technology more and it might as well become the official way to handle music distribution. The music industry should rather take advantage of the technology than keep trying to exterminate it.
As many users see P2P software as just file sharing, entertainment industries and other big companies see it as copyright infringement and stealing from copyright owners without their rightful authorization or compensation. These companies complain that P2P file sharing threatens the survival of the industries and believe that there should be a law passed to protect the livelihood of the copyright holders.
Piracy costs companies and artists money. Companies spend millions of dollars on research and development to make software. Artists spend countless hours to film a movie or record an album. Record labels and movie production companies spend millions of dollars producing and marketing entertainment media. The companies’ and artists’ investments are supposed to be returned in the form of profits from the media that the companies and artists sell to the public. However, if “pirates” are selling illegal copies of the media, the companies do not make any money. For example, Feng Xiaogang, a Chinese director, said in an article on CNN.com, “We estimate that one pirated DVD is watched by five people and there are roughly one million pirated copies of our film. One million copies times five people times $2.10 per tickets -- that's more than twelve million Yuan in box office loss” (FlorCruz 2002).
By fall 2000, there were 80 million users for Napster, and according to survey that was conducted on Napster users, there was an increase of 9% in music fans spending, among more experienced users there was an increase of 20% in their music spending, in addition to an increase of 19% among those using high speed connection. Napster and other free file sharing had caused the record sales to suffer. However, the file sharing services altered the conventional way of lessening to music for consumers. In 2001, 50% of U.S. households owned PCs; consumers spent $1.6 billion on CD burner, blank CDs and digital-audio players. 54% of PCs sales came with CD burners. More than 26% of online music users were ...
Their study focused on information on causes, attitudes, and reasons for online piracy, which can help companies be better prepared to face piracy and stimulate legal commerce of their products. They proposed that secondary incentives, which may be harder to pirate or may not be pirated, would possibly make sales more competitive with the “free” offerings of piracy.
Illegally distributing copyrighted materials is harmful to the industries involved, preventing content providers from receiving money that is rightfully theirs and possibly raising costs for legitimate users. Further, doing so on a large scale has never been easier, and regulating this distribution has proven to be extremely difficult. For instance, a number of sites exist which provide their users with free Internet storage, some of which, such as FreeDrive, permitting unrestricted public access. This allows for legitimate users to access the public domain files of other users, making the sharing of non-copyrighted material such as personal pictures and information very easy. However, it also makes it incredibly simple for a dishonest person to place copyrighted materials on such a site and post a link to it, effectively distributing whatever goods he or she has to offer to the entire Internet community.
One of the biggest controversies which has spawned from the popularity of the net is the piracy of music, software, and movies. In the past, piracy of music and movies was fairly small scale. The only way to make illegal copies of tapes was to dub them in a double tape deck. This process was slow enough that music companies and movie studios didn't really worry about it. With the advancement of technology, however, piracy has become as easy as burning a CD or downloading music from the internet. The ease with which people can get free copies of songs or movies, production companies have tried to crack down on piracy.
This peer-to-peer file sharing, or P2P, was an automated way to copy copyrighted material (Tyson). The creation and increased usage of Napster resulted in a crisis for the industry because neither the record labels nor the artists were getting any money in return. Although Napster lost in lawsuits against them for breaking copyright laws, labels weren’t able to stop this type of piracy and sure enough, new similar software platforms were created. Some P2P file sharing sites that are popular now include BitTorrent, uTorrent, and The Pirate Bay. P2P sharing changed the way the music could be shared and the traditional business model was no longer dominant in the music industry because of
Napster, an idea from the head of a teenager redefined the Internet and the music industry forever. The Napster website concept is simple: its creator hoped to design a "program that allows computer users to swap MP3s with one another directly (aka Peer to Peer File Sharing), without going through a middleman. Napster had achieved a tremendous level of success, but it once was a controversial service that spurred what is still one of the greatest Internet-related debates: Just because we can get the music we want without paying for it, should we?, although it is technically a file sharing program that has a central server. However, this simple idea has caused one of the biggest Internet revolutions in history, growing in popularity. It has also caused retaliation from the Recording Industry Association of America, which has unleashed its anger in the form of many lawsuits against Napster for copyright infringement. Napster has also divided musicians and the music industry like no other issue in recent memory. In this essay I will speak about MP3, peer to peer file sharing, legal troubles, where Napster is now, and a conclusion of this all. (Hart)
Physical piracy-the copying and illegal sale of hard-copy CDs, videotapes, and DVDs-costs the music industry over $4 billion a year worldwide and the movie industry more than $3.5 billion. These numbers do not factor in the growing (and difficult to measure) problem of Internet piracy, in which music and movies are transferred to digital format and copies are made of the resulting computer file. Journalist Charles C. Mann explains why Internet piracy has the potential to be vastly more damaging to copyright industr...
In today’s technological age and consumer-driven economy, there is no doubt that media piracy and file sharing are in demand and makes a big business. Not only the so called “bootlegged” materials cost less, but most of it also managed to completely imitate the quality of the original materials. It is much easier to people to download movies or music online or buy bootlegged DVDs for 5 dollars than to watch the movie in theaters or pay for the whole CD when there is only one song that the person likes. People know about the possible consequences of these actions, but they do not have a choice especially in these times of economy recession, plus everyone nowadays is doing it, so it would not be considered such a big deal at all if they illegally download or purchase copyright materials. On the other hand if everyone is doing it, why there are still some people getting caught? Not that they should not be punished, but being put into jail and paying a fine that is ridiculously impossible to pay are just practically harsh. Maybe if those people are business tycoons of counterfeit materials, but the fact that most of those people getting caught are just ordinary people trying to be practical and doing what the rest of the world is doing which is doing these “illegal” downloading or purchasing bootlegged movies and music. The government and the entertainment industries are using ordinary people as scapegoats and have been doing draconian methods in moms, children and maybe even old people by suing them for downloading or sharing pirated materials for free, because of the fact that they are having a hard time pursuing the big time “master minds,” who are making a profit out of someone else’s work.
There are a lot of people who download music and movies without paying. The main reason that this is such a big issue is because piracy substitutes for a legitimate transaction; for example, someone who would have originally bought a DVD of the movie Young Guns but instead downloads it for free on The Pirate Bay. In this case, the person pirating the movie or song would never have bought it. This happens frequently if the “pirate” lives in a relatively poor country, like China, and is simply unable to afford to pay for the films and music he or she downloa...
As explained above, illegal downloading is a great problem affecting the entertainment industry and could soon be an even bigger problem for consumers. Downloading copyrighted material illegally is just as unlawful as stealing from a store or someone’s personal item. To prevent shutting down businesses and industries, internet pirates must be stopped and actively sought after. So if one is downloading material illegally take in to mind what harm it can do to and who is being hurt in the process. Free does not mean that it’s moral or fine; one must analyze and see the consequences of such actions before they continue—otherwise, it could be the end of something great because people were stealing and driving companies out of business, with no force stopping them.
The first reason why downloading and uploading copyrighted materials from the Internet should be legal is that downloading copyrighted materials positively affects the economy. The European Commission Joint Research Center reported that the profits of music companies would be 2% lower if uploading and downloading copyrighted materials were banned. However, music companies are able to acquire more profits despite illegal downloading because many people tend to purchase CDs or DVDs after watching or listening to copyrighted materials for free. Moreover, the research showed that people who download music illegally spent more money to buy music than people who did not download illegally. In addition, research conducted by the Swiss government informed that one-third of Swiss people downloaded copyrighted materials from the Internet because personal use of copyrighted materials is legal in Switzerland. Even though there is a fact that many people can download copyrighted materials from the Internet legally in Switzerland, the amount of money that people spend to buy copyrighted materials is not f...