The Entangled Political Economy Of Copyright

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 order to understand the issues surrounding modern copyright we must first delve into the history of the law. Most parties generally agree that modern copyright law can trace its origins to the Statute of Anne. Bowker (1912) states that the act, passed by

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.”

The duration of copyright determines the length of protection. Limitations on this length exist to ensure works enter the public domain. Therefore, the length of protection is one of the most relevant and debated issues regarding copyright law. The proponents and opponents of copyright term extension make compelling arguments, but both sides agree that copyright law should encourage creativity and innovation. If Disney is successful in once again lobbying for an extension of duration, a substantial number of works will fail to enter the public domain in a timely manner. This will, consequently, lead to a stifling of creativity and a suppression of innovation that could be detrimental to progress in the realms of science and the useful arts.

There are claims made suggesting that copyright is a direct violation of our freedom of speech. Within the general foundation of protection and enjoyment of those protections, rest limitations, because of the real connection between authorization and copyright law. The goal of research is to investigate and unearth specific facts about the history of intellectual property in relation to old and contemporary court cases. The M. Whitmark & Sons v. Pastime Amusement Decree states that copyright is an indivisible and cannot be split up and partially assigned, as to time, place, rights and privileges (298 F. 470, 1924). Does this case contradict the Digital Millennium Act? Are the copyright rules in violation of any rights concerning our right to free speech? If so, how are those rights violated? The Statute of Anne in eighteenth century Europe, was set up to prevent the unauthorized composition of works that had

One of the most common, yet controversial, issues of First Amendment law is the subject of copyright and infringement. Although the subject may not seem major at first, many different issues and controversies have risen and become more common than ever over the years. The issues that have become pertinent to this subject are endless, including trademark infringement, piracy, theft, fraud, plagiarism, and many more. With the coming of age and advancement of technology, these cases have become more common and appear more often than ever before. Government officials have always been strict about copyright rulings, and have tried to deliver fair and just rulings for both parties involved under First Amendment rules. Because the owner’s work and material is protected under the First Amendment, it gets tricky when involving another party that can claim the same work of art. In short, the definition of copyright has always been cut and dry: allowing owners of creative works the right to control and profit from their creations. It is basically recognized as a form of property ownership.

After the period elapses, any person can use, print, publish, and distribute the original work. The music industry has been in dispute for many years in respect to music piracy. It went after software and website developers, as well as consumers in the courts (Easley, 2005, p.163). As a result, this may be why governing the expansion of the music industry towards later benefits for the industry; however, not toward those who pirate from them (Easley, 2005, p.163). There is clear evidence of a willingness to pay for online music in general through legal download services such as iTunes (Easley, 2005, p.163). It is clear that some new markets are emerging; for example, services such as 4G LTE combine music with other services. These markets may provide both better margins and better copyright protection to the music industry. Nevertheless, some forms of music piracy may ultimately come to be seen as an effective marketing channel for those services (Easley, 2005, p.163). Clearly the industry is adapting piracy issues.

Copyright is any expression recorded in any physical form, published or unpublished in any medium whether it is music, books, artworks or newspaper articles. Federal publications, facts and ideas are not copyrighted (www.honolulu.hawaii.edu). The very first copyright law that was established was known as the Statute of Anne, which was authorized in England in 1710 (history of copyright, 2005). The newly founded constitution allowed secure rights to its creators. An act very similar to the Statute of Anne was passed by congress in 1790 as the first American copyright law (history of copyright, 2005). As more and more books were produced and were becoming more accessible domestically and internationally in Europe and North America, it became

Copyright is the legal right, to an inventor to perform, print, publish, film, or record artistic, literary, or musical material, and to allow others to do the same. Copyright law was developed to provide the creators and inventors of any works with powerful and effective rights of exclusivity over their creations (Patterson & Lindberg, 1991). Over the past, these rights were almost unlimited. People would use existing developments as if they were their own without any regard of the creator’s exclusive rights. The need to balance and limit such rights arose, and governments established these limits for the general good of the public.

There was a Copyright Act passed in Congress in 1976 aiming at breaking the traditional association of publishers with all works while little recognition is given to the authors. Section 101 has also been amended to allow owners with exclusive rights to reproduce, prepare derivatives from copyrighted work, distribute, perform; display and audialy transmit copyrighted works (School). The authors, publishers and database companies have since tried to settle original copyright infringement by compensating those with registered works of copyright and those whose works had not been registered. There is a contradiction, especially for the second group. Thus, the Supreme Court declined to approve this

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.

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 enduring fascination for people is that they want law to be flexible in the matter of copyright. This was clearly expressed by Ed Mayo, Chief Executive of Consumer Focus quoting "UK copyright law is the oldest, but also the most out of date. Before addressing the question it’s important to look at the history and definition of UK Copyright law. It has grown from this beginning to form the main legal basis for the international publishing industry, which contributes so much to literature, learning and culture not only in the UK but it has crossed different nation’s borders.

In 1774 free culture was made because copyright was stopped in the case called Donaldson versus Becket in the House of the Lords in England. In 1710 the copyright was limited to 14 years. Donaldson was allowed to reprint Shakespeare despite other publishers were trying to stop him and demanded a common copyright law that would be forever.