Digital Piracy Is Not a Victimless Crime - Essay Example

Digital Piracy Is Not a Victimless Crime Introduction Digital piracy refers to the act of committing felony or inappropriate usage of copyrighted material. The digital world holds different perspective on the legitimacy of online piracy. The argument on the dominating economic issue originates from the increased online transactions. The internet offers the platform where applicable material is at everyone’s disposal (Torr 23). Information availability trends largely due to the social site entrepreneurs. Legal actions against Copyright infringement have different implication for the diverse online communities. The different course outline is due to the capitalistic economy fuelled by profits and growth in the entertainment industry. The fundamental motivation in the industry originates from the digital piracy tradition. Common reasoning supports measures to curb internet policy as the claims dispute the act. In regards to the discussion, the tradition behind the support is profit shortening to the involved companies. As a personal opinion, I find the argument critical and significant due to the inability to regulate internet usage. As such, regulating online piracy is almost impossible. The functionality of the online material usage tends to increase production costs and minimizes the profit margins for the involved companies. This paper will present an argumentative essay that uses evidence based on the damages of digital piracy. The presentation also covers the incurred losses and challenges facing software companies. The logic approach of the subject matter is the unhinged macro economic conditions with reduction in the currency. Recent shit responsibility alteration from manufacturing industries to the entertainment companies shows the need to enforce strict laws against online piracy The commonly pirated copyright materials include music, films, software, and academic material. The extended usage of online books like commercialized photocopying and massive reproduction is illegal. Other piracy forms of academic materials include reproduction of printed sources in digital content. The printing or widespread distribution depicts an extended piracy trade. The common online film piracy includes traditional methods and prolonged internet procedures. The common trends include videocassette, optical disc infringement and sign forgery or theft. Other sophisticated methods include broadcasting piracy and theatrical video recording piracy. A rising trend of online piracy also includes unauthorized software copying from computers. This rising tradition is common among the youthful population. The software generating companies incur losses due to the violation of the software privacy by the online pirating individuals. The process of trafficking copyrighted materials operates on a sophisticated technology through electronic devices. The file trading network systems affect the sale within the production industries. In addition, the online piracy of materials limits the access information. This limitation creates a barrier between the manufacturing companies and the customers due to the abuse of allocated access rights (Hunnewell, 210). The software copyright company and the software pirates all have different approaches in relation to the ethics involved concerning piracy, and their viewpoints about it. Hence their two very contrasting ethics involved when contrasting the ethical views of piracy and all contain valid points within them. In truth, different people hold different opinions concerning every matter and this includes whether piracy is ethical or not. Some believe there is nothing wrong with digital piracy. Some believe in the freedom of expression whereby they want information to free. According to their beliefs, it is acceptable as well as ethical to copy digital material because they believe in the right of information that is contained within the software. They also believe in the reproduction and the distribution of such software’s as part of fair use within the copyright laws. A number of pirates have cited their first amendment rights as the basis upon which they base their opinion on piracy. They claim that since posting of information in electronic form is protected under the first amendment, the distribution of such information is their right of self-expression and should not be looked at as being unlawful (Torr, 219). They also believe that digital piracy in no way does it hurt anyone in society, and should thus be classified as a victimless crime. They believe that with the rising prices of software that such companies that produce such software’s are in no way affected drastically with pirates making such digital copies of such program based information. Hence, they believe that since they are not going to pay for the program in any way they might as well share it out as its ok to get it for free if the option is readily available. Another very common ideology when it comes to digital piracy is that the value of the software being offered online does not reflect the value of the product being sold. This argument has been broadened in that since digital material is buggy it should not be considered a crime when distributing such material online because some of this material is sometimes faulty. On the final line, many also believe in testing the product or software being offered before actually paying for the commodity (Bocij, 201). On the other hand majority believe that piracy should be considered unethical and thus view piracy as not being an unethical crime, as a result of piracy the digital content industry has experienced a loss of over 12 billion dollars (Hall). Hence, it can be said that the attraction of piracy is because of obscurity as well as the ease at which such illegal copies of digital content can be made as well as distributed. In the case where individuals make illegal copies is helping in the cause of piracy and is not fighting it or stopping it in anyway. It should be well understood that information in no way wants to be free, it is the right of those with such creative minds who spend their days and time to profit from the content they make available online, just the same, way people who write books have the sole right to sell their books. Thus, a copyright is depriving the rightful owners of such digital content the wages of their hard –earned individual skills. It should be noted that software piracy can never be protected by the first amendment; this is because the first amendment doesn’t cover illegal activities. A copy of a copy stays authentic in quality leading to more good copies end up in major distribution. Low record sales in a company are evident. No payment from record sales leads to zero profit being made resulting to unemployment (Smith, 178). The music industry has suffered a major blow in music distribution. Some have even been forced to take their released projects back to the drawing board. The artist blames the company for leaking his work. Contracts and agreements on release dates are compromised followed by penalties or termination of businesses. Piracy leads to court battles over who leaked the music online leading to some parting ways with large amounts of money on legal fees or suing each other bringing death to a once perfect music relationship. A band is about to release its first breakout hit only to find everyone has it on his or her playlist. A software company is ready to launch its first money making software only to find out other sites have free downloads available to its future clients or customers. No compensation is offered to the company’s hard work and creative process. You cannot sell products that are free of charge and readily available in the market with the easiest and quickest forms of access to them. In my opinion, you do not need a shop to sell or distribute pirated music or software making it difficult to direct the authorities to the perpetrator. In 2003, the Federal Bureau of Investigations helps in finding a software-pirating website. A tip-off from the Software & Information Industry Association to the FBI leads to the arrest of the hackers. By the time the arrests were made, the website has sold over 10 million illegal software copies online (Hunnewell 211). Reducing digital piracy by enforcing strict laws and fines restricts an individual access to all the exciting new trending content found online. An advantage is that these rules will reduce the number of cases by a large percentage. Internet plays a major role in entertainment currently. Music, film and software companies will be forced to raise product prices for digital piracy compensations leading to hurting the pockets of the consumer (Belleflamme 211. He will be forced back to digital piracy. Today’s harsh economy and recession will increase digital piracy. To conclude, digital piracy has advantages to the artist. Musicians and bands can now access music performance and online airplay royalties. Record labels get paid whenever their music is used in film, video games or television and radio commercials. This was non-existent years ago. Live event organizers are able to sell show tickets online and receive their expected sale benefits. Online ticket sales reduce forgery. Conclusion . Piracy is illegally copying and obtaining digital software or original work online without owners’ consent. Digital piracy goes back as far as 1976 where Bill Gates writes a letter to those responsible urging them to stop. The first file sharing software was Napster developed by a college student in Boston’s Northeastern University in 1999. Hundreds of thousands of users join within a year and by February 2001, over 50 million users were on board with this new wave in the file sharing trend. Computers have been enabled to exchange files among each other, add music to that mix, and you have the worlds attention. 35% of file sharing contributes to internet traffic by 2010 and will increase to10Petabytes a month every three years (Fisk 78). The fundamental motivation in the industry originates from the digital piracy tradition. Common reasoning supports measures to curb internet policy as the claims dispute the act. In regards to the discussion, the tradition behind the support is profit shortening to the involved companies. As a personal opinion, I find the argument critical and significant due to the inability to regulate internet usage. As such, regulating online piracy is almost impossible. The functionality of the online material usage tends to increase production costs and minimizes the profit margins for the involved companies. Works Cited Austerberry, David. Digital Asset Management. Burlington, MA: Focal Press, 2003. Print. Albanese, Jay S. Combating Piracy: Intellectual Property Theft and Fraud. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers, 2007. Internet resource. Hunnewell, Lee. Internet Piracy. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub. Co, 2008. Print. Belleflamme, Paul. "Digital Piracy: Theory." Econstor. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2014. . Blackburn, David. "CiteSeerX — Document Not Found." CiteSeerX — Document Not Found. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2014. . Hall, Tia. "Music Piracy And The Audio Home Recording Act ." http://scholarship.law.duke.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2014. . Bocij, Paul. The Dark Side of the Internet: Protecting Yourself and Your Family from Online Criminals. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2006. Print. Fisk, Nathan W. Digital Piracy. New York, NY: Chelsea House, 2011. Print. Fisk, Nathan W. Understanding Online Piracy: The Truth About Illegal File Sharing. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger, 2009. Print. Hunnewell, Lee. Internet Piracy. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub. Co, 2008. Print. Porter, Eduardo. "The Perpetual War: Pirates and Creators." The New York Times. The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2012. Web. 2 Apr. 2014. . Smith, Michael. "Converting Pirates without Cannibalizing Purchasers: The Impact of Digital Distribution on Physical Sales and Internet Piracy." Carnegie Mellon University Research Showcase. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2014. . Torr, James D. Internet Piracy. Detroit: Greenhaven Press/Thomson Gale, 2005. Print. Read More