Piracy and Intellectual Property Rights

The Internet is filled with knowledge and supplemental information, whether it is information for a dissertation or even information on that new movie Brad Pitt will be involved in producing. In essence the Internet is viewed as a gateway into a lawless land of information and data sharing. At least it used to be lawless until big business and government started to take notice. Now the Internet is silently patrolled by governmental agencies everywhere. They say it is all in the name of national security and the threat against terrorism and piracy. All the while the Internet is slowly growing outward and businesses around the globe actively use it to communicate across country lines and advertise their newest and latest product to the worldly consumer. The Internet has played a major role in creating new and upcoming businesses as well as in the destruction of large governments and expanding margins of profits in business, particularly in the music and motion picture industries. But that does not mean that they (music and movie industries) are the only ones being affected by the malicious users who call the Internet their home; Rather every industry that deals in intellectual property rights are affected. The Internet can be viewed as an alternate reality, similar to the old American wild west in the sense that lawlessness prevails at every corner and Uncle Sam stands by with other government agencies working around the clock to try and beat the bandits (or hackers/pirates in this case) in their own domain. Some point out that these pirates and hackers commit these crimes in order to allow their idea of the free trade of every piece of information to be readily available, no matter the cost. But what if the cost means that ec...

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