Internet piracy is a theft of intellectual property such us music, film and software…. to mention few. The act performed by copying or sharing of intellectual property without the consent of the property owner/producer which was given a copyright ownership. Copyright is a legal right that protects intellectual works from being reproduced, shared, or disseminated without the permission of the copyright owner. Mostly the act is performed by consumers who do not or having minimal knowledge that the act is considered as illegal. If someone has bought music CD and burn the CD into many copies he/she thinks, as long as I bought the CD it is mine. But the CD is our property not the songs recorded these are intellectual property of somebody else’s. Especially nowadays music and film piracy over the internet is becoming rampant. The music recording companies and film producers are losing record profit from their work and investment. Music piracy was started at first by Nepster. Nepster had unlimited music collections that were shared on a network of computers. Because of the unlimited effort by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other organizations/foundations representing the music industry Nepster was banned and shut down. The experience has dispersed to Southern Pacific Islands where the US law can’t be implemented. The network sharing of music and other intellectual property is especially uncontrollable in these areas since it is not allowable to reserve or shutting down the ISPs.
As we know the music industry specially is responsible in producing, reproducing and dissemination of the records; therefore most of the cost incurred is paid by these industries. This implies the illegal copying and sharing of the CDs costs a lot to these companies than anyone involved in the project. A recent figure shows that the entertainment industries such as the music and the film have alone lost more than four billion in the past years from such kind of piracy over the internet. Before the advancement of technology for someone to reproduce a CD it takes a lot of effort, but today’s digital world makes this effort to be effortless and the produced materials have the same quality with the originals which is even difficult to identify which ones are illegal and which ones are not. In an effort to stop piracy the music industry with its affiliates is implementing many tiresome efforts, such as suing the companies who are directly involved in the acts and those who provide host for those companies. For the companies who were directly involved in the sharing of these files many courts have ordered for their shut offs, however for those who provide hosting, they are considered unaccountable and are not intiteled to identify their clients.
Furthermore the music industry and its affiliate’s starts suing individuals who are involved in the act, however the effort is tiresome to reach and penalize every individual in the ocean of the network world. On the other hand there are music stores that are legally selling digital music like ITunes and the rebirth of Nepster; the success of these companies indicates that many people are interested the convenience the digital system provides rather than the traditional model the music industries are following most. The convenience created in terms of cost ($0.99 for a song), preference for a song than everyone of the songs in a single CD, time, comfort ..many more are accountable for such preference. Therefore understanding of consumer choices, tracking of any illegal dissemination over the internet, controlling any illegal theft can be achievable but it takes the gut from everyone of us who aspire the continuity, the best quality, ultimately the growth of music and its economy which ultimately affects our GDP.
I really enjoyed reading your article. I totally agree with what you said. The losses created by the theft of music and movies is out of control. The four billion figure really shows what a large problem this is. People don’t realize what they are doing when they are getting music from the file sharing sites. People say that the artist make enough money and that it won’t affect them by downloading the song. That is a true statement one copy doesn’t matter. But the issue is when it happens millions of times and by then everyone is getting it for free and maybe only half the people bought their CD or bought their movie. it’s the mass quantity that causes problems. That’s why we must stop the file sharing or we will lose the creativity of the artist as there is no urge to try and put out a quality product if everyone rips it off. People don’t realize who they affect when they steal songs and movies. It is a cycle that affects everyone involved. It even affect the thief in the long run because artist stop putting out effort because they know they will be ripped off.
ReplyDeleteIt is really frustrating to think that the internet piracy is getting bigger. Every second somebody is downloading a song or a game, could you believe that? It is a form of theft because it is illegal. Many times we have heard that it will be penalized so the responsible for doing this activity would think twice the next time, but honestly is not what we see. It is a very hard issue and the solution is to be aware our children from the beginning, I mean we as parents should be involved in this matter teaching our loved ones that this activity it is illegal, moreover that it is a risk for the software and computer systems. I think this problem is taking more strength of what one could imagine. There are organizations that move this business with a huge amount of money. Actually there are many forms to start doing this illegal activity, but whichever is a bad one. Despite the authors that suffer with this practice losing money, it is sad to say and accept that they will be more well-known between their fans because the music they make became easier and cheaper to have.
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