Is Piracy Truly Hurting The Film, Record, And Game Industry

After reading “Dear Piracy Apologist: Downloading unreleased films is not cool”, the author expresses that he does not torrent films with the reasoning of, ‘because I can does not mean that I should.’ He states opposing arguments with bias for anti-piracy and defends reasons not to pirate.

Accordingly, starting with the overall piracy insurance cost estimate, the authors created a “rough estimate” (15) for 2010 of $460 million to $3.2 billion. After some push-back from the insurance industry, they were able to acquire more data from multiple resources and revised the cost estimate at $635 million for the year 2011 (16). The authors assumed that the insurance resources were correct in their assessment that the cost estimate was in fact excessive. Bowden and Basnet stated they felt more comfortable with this new estimate to “further develop the precision of [their] study” (15). In reality, it is still an estimate. Using further assumptions, they derived at the new insurance cost estimate.

The Global music industry makes around $43.9 billion dollars a year. $12.5 billion of that is lost each year due to Piracy in the music industry and 70% of online users find nothing wrong with online piracy (“Music’s Last Decade: Sales Cut in Half”). Is it wrong? Is music piracy stealing? This topic is said to have inspired Charles W. Moore to illustrate these points in his essay. Charles W. Moore writes the essay “Is Music Piracy Stealing?” and tries to answer his own question. Moore starts off by explaining that current day pirates simply do not care about copyright laws. He goes into detail about the philosophy, ethics, and morality of the threat to the free exchange of music over the Internet. Moore says, “Digital copywriting is as serious and criminal as stealing a CD from a record shop or a DVD from a video shop” (242). The subject on piracy is a controversial and an argumentative subject. Although Moore gives many great examples throughout his essay, he also has some faulty reasoning such as the root question of his argument is not provable, his factual data is excessive, he has lousy introduction and closing paragraphs, and his views are biased.

Online piracy is commonly referred to as a threat to businesses in the creative industries. The WTO Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (a.k.a. “the TRIPS” agreement) defines piracy as:

Julian Sanchez, research fellow at the Cato Institute, provides an interesting outlook on the issue of piracy, and what should be done. He compares the actions taken in the movie and television industry to prevent piracy by stating:

According to a study by Columbia University’s American Assembly called “Copy Culture,” 45 percent of Americans pirate media; and younger demographics pirate more (Mick 2). In response, some companies have gotten creative and put their media through alternatives such as Spotify for music, Netflix for movies and Steam for games. This makes media cheaper and more accessible, while still giving the companies something to stuff their pockets with. However, others refuse to go through the system and they still pirate entertainment. One

The rise of the Internet era opened the whole new market for traditional media full of opportunities as well as threats. Online piracy being one of them because the music and film industry loses £5.4bn in a year and if it was reduced by 10% it could have created up to 13 thousand jobs in the UK. There are various attempts taken to fight with online piracy; a case study of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement will be considered as well as other legislations attempting to regulate copyrights in the Internet. This

The most known motivation or reason behind committing digital piracy is cost in money. Whether it is not being able to afford or just wanting to save money, people are all about justifying free media with the excuse, “high prices”. According to Karakaya and Ulutürk eighty percent of people say that when software prices are considered to be too high for

Media piracy can sometimes be viewed as a repercussion of the digital age we live in. Although it had grown to become a common practice over the last 20 years, media piracy continues to be an illegal activity monitored by the Federal Bureau for Intelligence (FBI). Its effects range over a variety of industries, including software, music, TV and movie production. There is no denying that media piracy has transformed the way consumers enjoy products. By analyzing the origins of media piracy, studying its usage today, and debating the global and ethical views, one can see how this is an issue

The actual content producers: the artists, scientists, engineers, software and game programmers are severely affected by piracy. The law-abiding consumers are the ones on losing side as they are paying higher prices for lesser content as compared to offenders. Moreover, they may be required to pay higher prices for recovering from losses due to piracy. Selling digital content becomes a challenge for content providers as they are now supposed to compete with free products and services. Piracy employing internet services to access unlawful content evidently targets the copyright holders to earn profits. Users mainly rely on P2P networks to upload and download copyrighted content without the publisher’s permission. Such users not the service providers violate the rights of content owners.

In 2013, game development company, Greenheart Games, released their game, Game Dev Tycoon, alongside a cracked version of it “on the number one torrent sharing site.” This revealed that within a day of the game release, 93.6% of users playing their game were using the cracked version that they uploaded” (Klug). These stats are terrifying when trying to make a successful business on a digital platform. Seeing that a majority of industries make some revenue off the internet, piracy is something that must decrease in order for more businesses to make a profit on this relatively new platform. Piracy has been a concern for much longer than the internet as “[i]nventions such as the photocopier, CD burners, and the Internet has made the copying of books, music, and movies inexpensive and easy and the enforcement of copyright more difficult” (Adermon). This has only increased due to the accessibility of the internet. In order to decrease piracy, one must first understand why it happens in the first place. The main reasons for people to resort to piracy rather than the legitimate acquisition of products is that piracy is free, piracy is more convenient, and piracy is anonymous. There are many ways to try to counteract these positives of pirating, but with such a large number of pirated digital goods, how is it even possible to lower the effects of piracy?

In 2013, game developing company Greenheart Games released their game, Game Dev Tycoon, alongside a cracked version of it “on the number one torrent sharing site.” This revealed that within a day of the game release, 93.6% of users playing their game were using the cracked version that they uploaded” (Klug). These stats are terrifying when trying to make a successful business on a digital platform. As a majority of industries make some part of their revenue off of the internet, piracy is something that must decrease in order for more businesses to make profit on this relatively new platform. Piracy has been a concern for much longer than the internet as “[i]nventions such as the photocopier, CD burners, and the Internet has made the copying of books, music, and movies inexpensive and easy and the enforcement of copyright more difficult” (Adermon). This has only increased due to the accessibility of the internet. But in order to decrease piracy, one must first understand why it happens in the first place. The main reasons for people to resort to piracy rather than the legitimate acquisition of products is that piracy is free, piracy is more convenient, and piracy is anonymous. There are many ways to try to counteract these positives of pirating, but with such a large number of pirated digital goods, how is it even possible to lower the effects of piracy?

What exactly is media piracy? The definition of Piracy is “The unauthorized use of another’s production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright” (Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary online, 2017) In this digital day and age, gone are the days where the majority of people pirating media are “ripping” blank CD’s or making physical copies of movies, almost all of it is digital. Digital piracy is slightly different, and by definition is “The act of reproducing, using, or distributing information products, in digital formats and/or using digital technologies, without the authorization of their legal owners.” (Belle flame & Peitz.) How

Online piracy is another substantial type of a cybercrime. With rapid developments to technology, piracy has become easier and more widespread. Piracy, the act of pirating, is defined as the illegal reproduction, via copying or counterfeiting, of any type of work which includes: software, recordings, or even motion pictures. Although are many ways to pirate material, online piracy is most common. Online piracy uses the internet, and computer technology to illegally reproduce material. There are many detrimental effects of piracy that affects businesses, individuals, and even society.

he Pirate Bay (TPB), a Swedish Web site (Piratebay.org), is one of the world's most popular pirated music and content sites, offering free access to millions of copyrighted songs and thousands of copyrighted Hollywood movies. In June 2011, The Pirate Bay reported that it h ad about 5 million registered users, and 25 million non-registered users (so-called "free riders"). To put that number in p erspective, consider that it is nearly three times the population of Sweden itself (9 million). The Pirate Bay is regularly in the top 100 most popular Web sites in the world, and reach es 1 % of the global Internet popula­ tion, according to Internet analysts in 20ll.