The US Patent and Trademark Office defines piracy as "a theft of intellectual property". One could say that piracy is the stealing anything that is illegally copied, such as books, music, and movies. For example, if a song is copyrighted, downloading it from anywhere that does not have the artist's permission is piracy.
It is also important to read the licensing and terms and agreements on products because sharing software, music, or movies with others may be piracy, even if you purchased it. For example, many software programs state in their licensing agreements that you may only install the software onto one computer.
The Institute for Policy Innovation estimates that the piracy of music alone costs the US $12.5 billion, while having cost Americans over 70,000 lost jobs and $2 billion in lost wages.
As we move into a day and age of advanced technology, piracy is becoming more and more widespread. Modern pirates do not sail around in ships and do not have chests full of treasures, but rather surf the web and have hard drives full of illegally-downloaded digital content.
---
The following webpages were used to gather information for this post:
http://www.ipi.org/ipi/IPIPublications.nsf/f726f4998ba46f86862567d80074727a/d95dcb90f513f7d78625733e005246fa?OpenDocument
http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=What-is-Online-Piracy
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ahrpa/opa/kids/kidantipiracy04.htm
3 comments:
In today's word, anyone everybody gets happy when they hear they getting something for free, in most cases without measuring the consequences. Piracy is a huge problem many countries have to deal with. Even though piracy is punished with jail time, a lot of people assume that they would never get caught when downloading something with paying for it. I think that buy buying songs or movies you are actually encouraging the industry to produce more movies and songs that we can enjoy. As long as technology keeps developing the way it is, the more ways people are gonna find to download illegal software.
I agree that Piracy has gotten completely out of hand. The internet has made digital piracy so easy, it is very difficult to try and regulate. Although the government has taken action, I feel that the issue is bigger than anything they can control. No matter how many downloaders get sued, people will keep finding ways to get illegal media content. Sure, you can preach, shame, and threaten people for getting pirated content. But after years of trying to do that, piracy is more rampant than ever. It is so common for people to download media illegally, people feel safe because they believe the chances are rare that they will be one the few to get caught.
A note on piracy a few years ago one of my friends had a limewire account and one day downloaded a song and got a pop up that basically said your caught. He freaked out thinking that the FBI would be knocking on our apartment door but nothing happened to him but on a positive note the scare got him to stop using and he actually deleted his limewire account.
Post a Comment