Online Piracy And The Internet

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Good day, allow me to briefly introduce to you the topic of the day… Illegal downloading. Branded as the ‘scourge’ of the internet by some; worshipped as the ‘saviour’ of many by others. Ever since the beginning of time, everyone could agree on one thing—People love free stuff. Illegal downloading, or online piracy as some would call it, is just that. You get something, for nothing at all. The only real cost is internet bandwidth! Wait. You’ve never heard of this magical, yet extremely illicit experience that is online piracy? Well, do you watch movies, listen to music, or play video games? Have you always been throwing cash at your computer screen? Well, today’s your lucky day! You’ll learn all about this joyous concept, get the opportunity to fill your virtual library with contraband, and finally receive a free, one way ticket to your nearest law enforcement agency! Let’s begin our adventure… What is this sorcery? Branching out of the depths of the early 21st century, the concept of illegal downloading started out as a free exchange of information between people. Sharing is caring, isn’t it? Online piracy made the possession of your neighbour’s intellectual property so much more easier! Well, assuming that we’re still discussing within the context of virtual items. No, you cannot clone his cat. But, how do you illegally download, you ask? The steps are relatively simple. Find a file download link, click it, wait, and voilà! The file magically appears on your desktop. Unsurprisingly, this procedure is identical to that of legally downloading, other than the fact that you were meant to, you know… pay in the former method. The whole concept is quite similar to a free, virtual black market… and like all bad influences, a lot of f... ... middle of paper ... ...file sharing application ‘pirates’ were using. After that, they were able to browse through all the other files users were sharing and even acquire their IP addresses. Torrent files, on the other hand, are not stored on networks, but rather on their respective websites (Brinkmann, 2012). Individual websites can literally be moved to anywhere in the world to escape copyright laws. The same is, unfortunately, not true for your desktop computer. Phew! We’re done! Now let’s move on to… the aftermath! Internet service providers… put in charge of monitoring online piracy traffic. BitTorrents… still providing ‘pirates’ with illegal goodies. There was also the emergence of file hosting services like MediaFire somewhere around the early 2000s… providing yet another free alternative to illegal downloaders everywhere. Direct downloads and resumable torrents. What more can you

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