Piracy in China
The American Heritage Dictionary defines piracy as “the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted or patented material.” It is a problem that affects companies all over the world. Piracy of software, movies, and music is commonplace in China. China has the second worst piracy rate in the world; about 92 percent of the software in China is pirated (Williams 2004). Various companies and governments have attempted to combat piracy, but they had not seen much success until recent years. Combating piracy is a difficult task, especially in a country that has a history of not enforcing intellectual property laws.
Piracy costs companies and artists money. Companies spend millions of dollars on research and development to
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Why would it produce the software in the first place?
The evolution of technology has made it even easier to pirate media. Anyone with a personal computer can easily duplicate CDs and DVDs at home. People commonly pirate DVDs, video and audio cassettes, and video and audio CDs. The price of the hardware, software, and blank media that is used to pirate is constantly dropping and is readily available to consumers.
Cultural practices in general in China support piracy. China has a reputation for having a tolerance for some of the highest piracy rates in the world. “Despite laws and international agreements protecting intellectual property rights, an overwhelming lack of political rules within China allows piracy to rapidly expand” (Rohde 2004). However, it’s not just the government that is causing the problem. People seem to believe that piracy is a way of life in China. For instance, an American expatriate that’s living in China was quoted in City Weekend Magazine as saying, “I buy rip-off t-shirts, I didn’t register with the police to live in my building, and I try to avoid paying tax – but I don’t think any of it constitutes fraud. It’s just part of life here” (Lusby 2004).
People with certain religious beliefs are affected by piracy. For example, one of the Ten Commandments is, “Thou shalt not steal.” Most people, however, do not associate piracy with stealing. People believe that buying a pirated DVD or
Before statistics are thrown in, as well as interviews and other various factoids, the definition of piracy should be made clear. Piracy refers to the act of using or reproducing another’s work without authority. The alternate definition; however, which is older and still used today, means, “The attacking and robbing of ships at sea.” You will never see Blackbeard torrenting (torrenting is a popular form of obtaining pirated media) the latest Katy Perry album, and you will never see some nerdy kid with no money plundering a cruise ship. Public opinion of piracy is not a very positive one: record companies, film producers, and even some game developers see pirates as heartless criminals, sitting behind a keyboard as they download millions of dollars worth of stolen content, and in turn, about forty percent of the general public see it that way as
pirated copyright goods shall mean any goods which are copies made without the consent of the right holder or person duly authorised by the right holder in the country of production and which are made directly or indirectly from an article where the making of that copy would have constituted an infringement of a copyright or a related right under the law of the country of importation ().
There are some smart people who make a lot of money pirating items such as Movies for making money. There are people who have made millions of dollars using this illegal way to steal what is not theirs. Most of the time piracy does not impact the consumer because the most popular form of piracy is downloading music. People pirate items for to get a cheaper price out of things or to sell to another person for a higher price then what they pirated it for. If a company’s product is being Pirated one solution they might try is to stop making new products for release or they might take disciplinary action and get the police involved. Pirating is a very scummy way to make money and it really hurts the company that made the product. Piracy is not good for the economy and it hurts more than you can imagine. The people that use piracy are usually very poor and doing it to make money to support themselves and their family. I’ve seen my friend illegally download music and it really made me sad because I know in the end my friend is going to get hurt in one way or the other. Piracy can happen in many forms but usually happens as a video recording of a famous movie or a D.V.D. some ways to stop piracy our
China has more complexity than other countries with its distinctive cultural, political and social conditions. The piracy problem is hence complex and difficult to predict in China. As the second largest economic entity in the world, its national legislation and
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
Such policy seems to be working with plagiarism at e.g. Universities, but in term of intellectual property the intangible aspect of the product makes it more difficult to control. Therefore stopping online piracy is easier said than done, as it would require enormous human resources from a government to track down illegal websites and taking a legal action against them leading to the closure. One case study worth following regarding this issue was on the major streaming website TV SHACK.net has been seized many times by the US government and it kept changing the domain addresses to overseas addresses as .co or .bz. The owner, 23 year old student Richard O’Dwyer from Sheffield has been charged with copyright infringement and the US Justice Department has been seeking to extradite him from the UK since May 2011 – BBC reports. Streaming itself is a grey area in many countries, i.e. Germany, where it is not perceived as downloading but has been sourced using illegal means. Compared with the legal issues and the fact that the content was stored on foreign servers the law enforcement was extremely difficult, but now it has been set an example worldwide of tackling with piracy. On entering the internet address now a video clip displays which in a humoristic educated people on what piracy is and how much a “free” movie really cost. Such attempt is one of the suggested ways in dealing with piracy through
With software piracy tending to cover many influences in society, cultural factors has become a key part. In many cases, one popular factor is software such as video games, as it has a big influence with people having a high demand for video games
It seems obvious that most pirates are located in countries where there are computers and internet access. These locations are most likely in developed countries like the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Tracking what is uploaded onto sites is possible but is difficult. Networks called peer-to-peer networks track uploads but are slowing dying because of legal issues and the shutdown of websites like Megaupload and RapidShare. Copying media does not also happen on the internet. Simply putting media on hard drives, cds, flash drives and handing them to people is not trackable unless you 're caught by law
Digital Media; as in software, music, movies, books, and anything else which can be stored in binary representation, which then, can be so conveniently transmitted across the globe over the world wide web to anyone and everyone, with total disregard to any copyright laws what so ever, which is where the piracy part comes in.
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.
Piracy is a hydra. Cutting one of its heads, will make the next head come and bite you harder. The way to “tame the beast” is by embracing and understanding that there are ways to monetize downloading, and arguably give a better chance to the “little guy” to get out there. Also, trends consistently show that file-sharing benefit the bigger, more famous artists, as well. The reason is that file sharing is the more efficient way to distribute content to the masses. This wider base brings out other avenues of revenue, like ticket sales for live shows/movies, extra merchandise being sold and greater exposure in social media. Evidence suggests that file-sharers are actually the bigger spenders on entertainment. So why do they still choose to download content and engage in copyright infringement? The cause can be derived from one or several of the following issues: (i) Pricing - unwillingness or inability to pay the price requested by the legitimate
Thousands of people illegally download all types of digital media off of the internet daily. This can include music, games, or various types of software. The owner’s of the intellectual property being pirated would have you believe that the destruction of their respective industries is imminent due to the piracy and that that everyone who takes part is immoral and nothing more than a common thief. They insist that the only way to stop piracy is through stricter enforcement laws. In reality the piracy is harmless, if not beneficial to the media industries, and the people doing it are just as harmless. The real threat is to the people and our personal
Thanks to technological advancements file sharing over the Internet has become a very popular and easy thing amongst Internet users. Different system protocols, such as BitTorrent enable quick, easy and secure file sharing of large files. Abuse of these revolutionary systems result in the illegal sharing of music, books, movies and software.
The system of Intellectual property laws in China, although has a thorough improvement since China’s entry into WTO, is yet to be perfected with irresolute implementation in some specific provisions, difficult enforcement of protecting intellectual property and unsustainable intensive supervision on piracy and infringement issues.
Film Piracy is the unauthorized use or reproduction of movies in print, videos, DVD, or electronic files by uploading or downloading; an upload is when a person sends or makes available a file; a download is when a person