The History of Internet 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.”

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

The golden age of piracy was a time of thievery and pillaging as pirates roamed the high seas. It was a time where piracy was at its peak and buccaneers pillaged town after town that they came across, hungry for gold and riches. The golden age of piracy took place from approximately 1715 to 1725. There are two main reasons why the golden age of piracy took place. One reason is that privateersman, people who were paid by the government to work on warships, were out of work after the wars ended and turned to piracy to make a living.

B. Relevance: The Internet has changed the way we all live. It is at our disposal with many advantages and some disadvantages, piracy being one of them. The Stop Online Piracy Act,

It was previously mentioned, by Adams, how America should not wage war against the Barbary states, unless, America had plans of fighting them forever. While Adam’s words were not heeded, they rang true. From the ten years after the first Barbary War, to hundreds of years after the Barbary Wars, there is still piracy. Modern Day Piracy is commanded by Somali fisherman who attack cargo ships that travel along Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. The Somalian Fisherman first struck in the year of 1990, while their numbers have declined after 2012, there are still Somali Pirates. Some of the countries that have been attacked by the modern day pirates include Hong Kong, India, Liberia, Kenya, Taiwan, Denmark, North Korea, The United States, and numerous

Hollywood portrays pirates as swashbuckling outlaws with their own set of rules and loose morals, nefarious hideouts, and adventure at every turn of their lives; but that’s Hollywood. During the Golden Age of Piracy, about 1550 to 1730, pirates did traverse the Atlantic almost completely unchallenged; producing some of the most notorious pirates and privateers the world had ever seen. But not all of these pirates were outlaws, most were actually legal. And their hideouts weren’t really hideouts at all; just cities that were afraid of the Spanish and thought the pirates could protect them. And adventure? Well, some of the best and most infamous pirates didn’t want the epic battles that are pictured in many of today’s films. Something else

The real growth in emerging technologies began in 1998 with the evolution of the MP3 player. This allowed for a new type of audio-compression that was at the time, a revolutionary means for listening to music. What the creators of MP3 files and music industry experts didn’t know was that this technology that they thought would help them, would actually hurt them in the long run. By developing a type of music file that is so compressed it takes up less space yet maintains the integrity of the audio quality, music personnel predicted that this technology would make it much easier to distribute and enjoy music across many outlets (computers, iPods, MP3 players, etc.). But this creation actually led to the development of infamous online file sharing

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

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.

This report aims to demonstrate the pros and cons of software piracy and downloading copyrighted material in comparison with law legislations. The history and outline of how piracy first began, followed by a detailed investigation of the positive and negative issues, including the law aspect.

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 and copyright issues have been seen as a huge issue in the history of national and international law. These issues have grown to greater concern up to this point in time because of the advancements in technology, the ease of stealing information, and the accepting culture of copying, sharing and redistributing copyright material. It has become a part of our daily lives like downloading music from YouTube through third-party sites, pirating movies from online websites through torrents and torrent applications, or copying scripts off the internet for school productions. Since the beginning of the rise in copyright and piracy issues, research has shown that Canada and the United States have taken some similar and some different approaches these issues.

Companies like Apple, have decided that it is best to get in with the downloading business. However, an end to the illegal downloading conflict remains to be realized. The RIAA and associated artists continue to wage war against illegal downloaders while computer savvy audiences persist in sharing music files online every day. While it is undoubtedly true that downloading music is a crime, it remains to be proven that it is wrong. Without establishing this principle, most downloader's are likely to continue the activity. Even with new, inexpensive and available means of downloading files, they can still be shared for free online. The rift must be repaired between music lovers who feel that they have been taken advantage of in the past and recording companies and artists who worry about their future livelihood.