The Controversy Of Online Piracy

Piracy has become a major issue in the United States. For every motion picture that has been featured in theaters also has been pirated onto the Internet the next day, and for every new musical album that is released, yet there is a free torrent file of the album within the same hour. Even though these online pirates steal music and movies from other companies and make a drastic profit, yet these “rogue” websites receive 53 billions visits a year from across the globe according to Creative America. The persistence of the thieves that break copyright laws of the productions has lead the entertainment business to place a definitive complaint to the U.S. government of the constant notion of piracy. While the notion of piracy was not left

In the global market that we leave in companies are trying to find any and everyway that they can to get ahead in their respective markets. This most of the time brings out the most innovate thinkers that can come up with a way to keep it’s company on top of their market and sometimes we see that there are companies that like to take a short cut by using non legal and malicious methods. According to Lewis, (1985), Software piracy is the illicit copying of the operating instructions and applications programs, which make computers work, is a large and growing industry. The Pirate Bay is part of a European social and political movement that opposes copyrighted content and demands that music, videos, TV shows, and other digital content be free and unrestricted. In the words of the Pirate Party, “the Pirate Bay is a unique platform for distributing culture between regular people and independent artists, and that’s something we want to preserve.”

An article by Anna Jo Bratton, Associated Press, describes well the dangers of my topic: piracy. In the article, Bratton reported a recent legal matter that impacted Sarah Barg, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln sophomore, and her colleges. The RIAA, an anti-piracy and plagiarism society had suspected that many students at the university had been illegally downloading media content. Burg received an email concerning the matter, but she was ignorant and considered it a fluke or scam. The email suggested that she had supposedly downloaded a whopping 381 songs. The letter continued to say that a lawsuit was possible, but they offered here an opportunity to avoid that circumstance. They requested of her $3,000, or $7.87 per song. Sarah, still

Traditional legal principles and processes are constantly challenged by the need to keep pace with copyright issues in particular piracy. The Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015

Digital piracy on music has been a majorly disputed affair for the last eighteen years, about whether or not it favors the musical artists or affects them in a negative fashion. One of the many sides of the Digital piracy controversy expounds that it benefits the artist(s) by giving them a great deal of exposure that they may not have received had they not downloaded it for free, which in turn makes for a very significant acquisition in terms of sales on their part.

Internet piracy is a hot-button topic, but it is not one that we should take lightly. We as a nation need to quell the distribution of these stolen materials. Imagine if someone pirated teaching videos online to learn for free? Then what would happen to teachers? Where would we be without libraries and their indispensable resources? The days of Blackbeard may be gone, but if we, as a nation, fail to take action, well, we are in for some stormy

The internet is like an ocean brimmed with information (figuratively and literally if you count all the gigantic cables buried on the sea bed). Like any good ocean, it’s vast, large, and expansive; far from what our eyes can see. It’s a place of wonder and amazement, a place that triggers one’s urge to explore, to discover, and ultimately to conquer (if you’re Comcast). The Golden Age of Piracy is easily relatable for netizens, the romanticism found in traversing the never ending sea, unencumbered from governments, laws and principles, while harboring all sort of individuals with diverse interest, value and taste. The internet is the last place with true freedom in a world that is becoming progressively more restricted. Net neutrality is the

From the moment consumers were able to use the internet to get music, software, and movies, piracy has had serious financial implications for the motion picture industry. Copyright protection presents some difficulty in illegally obtaining movies, but there are many avenues around most of these systems. The RIAA, or Recording Industry Association of America, has tried several legal ploys to prevent people from accessing this material, but many consumers continue to access it with little concern. Much like the music industry, which was challenged to reinvent its distribution model, the movie industry has to do the same thing. To counter the amount of piracy the movie studios must develop new systems for content delivery including streaming new release movies at home.

Diverse perspectives flood the market on the subject, ranging from the harsh accusation of legal precedent, to the methodical dissection and theoretical solution. Sebastian Anthony, author of the article “A Case for Piracy” being a prime example. Falling back on the philosophy of “No harm, no foul,” Anthony fends off the allegations of wrong piracy. Questioning the

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:

We all know that downloading pirated music and films is illegal, but what exactly is it? The term piracy refers to the copying and selling of music, films and other media illegally; in other words you are copying and selling copyrighted media without the permission of the original owner (NiDirect, n.d.). With the massive growth of the internet and its ability to store and capture vast amounts of data, we have become much more reliable on information systems in all aspects of life, but it does not come without the risk of information technology being used unethically. With the number of IT breakthroughs in recent years “the importance of ethics and human values has been underemphasised” often resulting in various consequences. Not surprisingly one of the many public concerns about the ethical use of IT is that “millions of people have downloaded music and movies at no charge and in apparent violation of copyright laws at tremendous expense to the owners of those copyrights” (Reynolds, Ethics in Information Technology, 2015). This essay covers the ethical issues of downloading pirated music and films and the impact it has on music corporations and recording and film companies.

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:

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

Media Piracy is a major issue in the world today, involving all kinds of people from all reaches of the world. Canada and the US take different approaches to combat piracy, Canada’s method is superior with a focus on preventative measures as opposed to criminal enforcement. Preventative measures mean that a crime can be prevented or stopped before its even committed. Using this argument, the investment into preventative measures would mean less crimes are committed which, in turn is more beneficial to society and the budget of the government than pursuing a route of discipline. The United States’ approach involves tracking those who have committed the crime and punishing them. Net neutrality also plays a big part in the fight to battle piracy, with both countries taking interest in the idea of ending net neutrality.

Ever since the start of illegal music downloading there has been an ongoing debate. As with any controversy, there are those whose positions stand at one end of the spectrum or the other and also those who are moderate or nonchalant. Many believe that downloading a song without paying for it is not only illegal, but also immoral. None-the less, people continue to download songs, rationalizing that the record companies are getting what they deserve after years of overpriced CD's or that the artists won't really miss the money. Some people are not sure what to make of the situation, sympathizing in some respects with either side. There are several proposed solutions to this problem, but it has become obvious that there is not easy or clear