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.
Have you ever seen a movie that cost you $250,000 and five years of your life? Because that is what committing the crime of physical piracy costs you. There are two different types of piracy such as digital and physical. Both have the same principal behind them. Many people don’t consider piracy as a real crime. Because there is no physical evidence of digital piracy, often people see nothing wrong with what they are doing. In reality, they are committing a similar crime as the person who walks in a store and steals a DVD. In both cases, the patron is responsible for his or her actions and should be punished justly. The definition of stealing is to take another person’s property without legal permission and without intending to return it. Stealing is not only morally wrong, but can also get someone in trouble with the law. Piracy has become more of a trend and easier than ever with the new digital age.
Much of Rose's argument for the retention of current copyright laws stems from the faulty belief that copyright infringement will remain much of an underground practice. In his article Rose asserts that "Net users who aren't at least mildly familiar with the [file-sharing] underworld will never even hear about such systems before they are dismembered" [1]. While file-sharing might not have been an important issue in 1995, the word "underworld" does not accurately describe the flourishing file sharing situation today.
It is first beneficial to know the definition of piracy. Piracy has been characterized multiple ways from multiple disciplines. For the purpose of this paper, I will apply the definition of piracy from the 1982 United ...
I developed an interest in this topic very naturally. I have lived in China for 24 years, watching movies and using software without copyright as all the others do. However, when I learned about loss reports and business law about software piracy, I began to think deeply about the phenomenon. Since my major is Accounting, I could have a new standpoint that is different from either the offenders or legislators. The goal of this report is to give people more background information about piracy and ascertain the factors that consumers’willingness to pirate a product and find solutions. From statistical result at 2010, about 375,000 jobs are lost each year because of piracy (DGA, 2010). Piracy occurs just at the time when a person illegally downloads, shares files, movies, software, music or any other copyrighted material. This is also known as "Peer-to-Peer" sharing or P2P for short.
"4 Ways In Which Internet Piracy Can Be a Good Thing." MakeUseOf. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
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.
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
When it comes to piracy there are many ethical issues in the music industry. For many years the industry has been battling with music piracy, but the industry is fighting a battle that they are going to lose a...
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.
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.
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...
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
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?’