Piracy is a form of theft. Specifically, it refers to the unauthorized copying or use of intellectual property. Intellectual property is knowledge or expression that is owned by someone. There are three major types of intellectual property: 1) creative works, including music, written material, movies, and software, which are protected by copyright law; 2) inventions, which are protected by patent law; and 3) brand-name products, which are protected by trademarks. Many of the issues surrounding piracy have to do with the difference between intellectual property and physical property. A CD, for example, is a piece of physical property, but the songs on the CD are intellectual property. A customer in a record store can purchase a CD, but someone else still owns, or more precisely, has the copyright to the songs on the CD.
Piracy is primarily a problem for the entertainment and software industries, and therefore piracy most often involves violations of copyright law. Copyright is a legal right that protects creative works from being reproduced, performed, or disseminated without permission of the copyright owner. Essentially, a copyright gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of the material in question.
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...
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...ple's physical property, there is clearly a social benefit from the wide dissemination of intellectual propertyi.e., ideas and their expressions.
In Naughton's view, online file sharing does not qualify as "piracy" at all:
We have to remind legislators that intellectual property rights are a socially-conferred privilege rather than an inalienable right, that copying is not always evil (and in some cases is actually socially beneficial) and that there is a huge difference between wholesale piracy'the mass-production and sale of illegal copies of protected worksand the filesharing that most internet users go in for.
Although online file sharing debuted in 1999, lawmakers and copyright industries are just beginning to address the myriad questions the practice has generated. In At Issue: Internet Piracy, authors attempt to answer some of those questions.
One of the most prominent legal issues in copyright law pertains to ‘fair use’. Fair use can be exemplified as a person who stores copyrighted music files on their personal laptop in folders accessible by the public, which are liable for infringing upon the copyright owner’s exclusive right to distribute. Another case exemplified is when a software developer could be vicariously liable for copyright infringement when it distributes technology in which individuals have the option to share copyrighted and non-copyrighted material. In both of these cases, the courts are demanded to “ascertain the limits of statutory language through judicial interpretation and interpolation.” (Jessica D. Litman, Copyright, Compromise, and Legislative History, 72 CORNELL L. REV. 857, 858
Over the past decade the societal view of creative society has greatly changed due to advances in computer technology and the Internet. In 1995, aware of the beginning of this change, two authors wrote articles in Wired Magazine expressing diametrically opposed views on how this technological change would take form, and how it would affect copyright law. In the article "The Emperor's Clothes Still Fit Just Fine" Lance Rose hypothesized that the criminal nature of copyright infringement would prevent it from developing into a socially acceptable practice. Thus, he wrote, we would not need to revise copyright law to prevent copyright infringement. In another article, Entitled "Intellectual Value", Esther Dyson presented a completely different view of the copyright issue. She based many her arguments on the belief that mainstream copyright infringement would proliferate in the following years, causing a radical revision of American ideas and laws towards intellectual property. What has happened since then? Who was right? This paper analyzes the situation then and now, with the knowledge that these trends are still in a state of transformation. As new software and hardware innovations make it easier to create, copy, alter, and disseminate original digital content, this discussion will be come even more critical.
Soon after starting this project, though, it became clear that there would be no simple answer to these questions. Most of the rabbinic literature on the topic of intellectual property rights deals with physical media such as books and audio tapes. How these rulings apply to digital piracy is not always obvious. Furthermore, many of the responsa are terse and cryptic. This is increasingly frustrating when the rabbis, as they often do, disagree with each other. F...
The evolution of the Internet into a mainstream resource has provided its users with access to whatever their hearts desire, often at no cost. Such free access has instilled in the minds of users that they are entitled to possess all that they may obtain, without regard to those from whom they are taking. Causing the damages to our economy and society on a global scale, and challenges to the current state of copyright law, resulting from the growth and advancement of digital technology, which has created a pandemic of apathy among an entire population of users toward the interests of copyright owners.
What exactly is piracy? Well, it is the practice of attacking and robbing ships at sea. The basic concept behind piracy has remained the same for thousands of years, dating back to 14th century B.C. “An inscription on an Egyptian clay tablet depicted a group of people being attacked on the coast of Egypt.” (Vallar, “The History of Maritime Piracy”). However, the first evident indication of piracy originated a little later in Ancient Greece over 2,000 years ago during the Archaic (800-500 B.C.) and Classical (500-320 B.C.) periods. The pirates intercepted ships attempting to trade goods across the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea. The Aegean contained plenty of small islands which were used by pirates as safe havens. In fact, the term pirate originated from the Greek word “peirato”, which referred to people who tried to attack without authority. Homer, an ancient Greek author, wrote about piracy for the first time in The Odyssey. Although he didn’t specifically support piracy, he did say that pirates were able to achieve high social status.
Piracy is the illegal copying of products; it means unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted material. Anyone who sells, acquires, copies material is called pirate.
Copyright, piracy, intellectual property and professional codes of ethics are critical subjects for computer and business professionals. This paper will first explain copyright laws and intellectual property. Second, an explanation concerning piracy will be submitted. Finally, a description of my own professional code of ethics will be presented.
Over the years, software piracy have become a burden on the entertainment industry. Software piracy is the unauthorized selling or copying of soft wares. This occurs by copying, selling or by downloading multiple copies of a software on personal computer without the authorization of the manufacturer. There are five common types of piracy the end user piracy, the Client-server overuse, internet piracy, Hard-disk loading and software copyrighting. According to BSA, the software industry lost 63.4 billion in revenue in 2012 due to software piracy. (Lerner)Artist spends a lot of time and hard work preparing their product therefore individuals should pay for their products, they are devaluing the artist hard work.
Even though new technology advancements can be used to circumvent copyrights, in a number of cases individuals solely use it for the purposes of innovation, enabling them to create something new and different. In situations like these, IP law can lead to the “inadvertent criminalisation” of individuals, who have no intention of breaching any copyrights, and are exempted under the ‘fair use’
With technology increasingly becoming better and better, a lot of activities are becoming way easier to accomplish; such as, buying and selling, but not all things becoming easier are necessarily good. Lots of people take advantage of technology these days and pirate things like music; by doing this, they are stealing lots of effort and man hours with just a few clicks. When people share this abusive power, more and more people tend to pirate and it is almost an irrevocable process. Most people pirate because they cannot afford to pay for the product they pirate or in another sense are just really lazy, but that is no excuse! People who have pirated music should be fined because they are hurting the artist; they can actually give the money
Music piracy is a developing problem that it affects the music industry in many different ways including being responsible for the unemployment of 750,000 workers, as well as a loss of $2,5 billion; therefore, I want to explore ‘To what extent has music piracy affected the music industry market in the United States over the last 10 years?’
Internet piracy is defined as: “Copyright infringement is the use of works protected by copy right law without permission, infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works. The copyright holder is typically the work's creator, or a publisher or other business to whom copyright has been assigned" (Dowling v., 1985). Shawn Fanning was an 18-year-old collage drop out but he was not like any other regular teenage collage drop out. He created one of the most amazing file sharing networks (Napster Peer-2-Peer application), it allowed you to search the name of the artist or song and download files that were being shared by people for free and that is when internet piracy began (http://www.cracked.com/funny-4101-the-history-internet-piracy/).In 2001 Napster was shut down but it was too late and other file sharing sites had spread including KaZaA and Morpheus. Today almost a third of UK internet users who stream or download music, TV and films did so through internet piracy in the quarter to the end of January, with almost 400 files digitally printed in a three month period according the the media regulator (Mack Sweney , 2013). Many laws are being broken when it come to piracy such as the U.S. copyright law, but people just seem to not care. Music and movie online piracy has become a major issue that is not only affecting the music and movie industry in a financial way but also causing ethical issues.
Back in 2007, Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), published a report by Stephen Siwek. The report primarily focused on the economic impacts of sound recordings piracy on the U.S. economy. Piracy harms legitimate middlemen, media creators, and governments in the supply chain of media products. On the other hand, consumers of pirated media products do not enjoy some of the benefits that one would otherwise enjoy with purchases of legitimate media products (Siwek, 2007). Media products that can be pirated include music, sound recordings, films, TV programs, books, software, and video games among other media products that are produced under copyright laws. Karaganis (2011) defined piracy as unlawful copying and transmission of copyrighted media without authorization from a copyright owner, particularly when an individual intends to use the pirated media for commercial gain or achieve any other unauthorized purpose for which a particular media product is not meant. The legal landscape of piracy is blurred with lack of clear definition of piracy, especially when one backs up copies of media that he or she has legally bought for personal consumption. Despite the legal complexities that permeate into the field of media piracy and intellectual property rights, media piracy portends some adverse economic effects on revenues to media content producers as well the larger economies.
Protection by copyright law gives creators incentives to produce new works and distribute them to the public. In doing so, the law strikes a number of important balances in delineating what can be protected and what cannot, determining what uses are permitted without a license, and establishing appropriate enforcement mechanisms to combat piracy, so that all stakeholders benefit from the protection afforded by
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...