An Introduction to Internet Piracy

Adapted from Internet Piracy Exposed by Guy Hart-Davis

What is Internet Piracy?

• Piracy conducted via the Internet

• What do the Digital Pirates Do?

– Since pirates steal stuff

– Digital pirates steal digital stuff by transferring files back and forth

– Getting without paying

• Stolen files include:

– music, video, pictures, texts, and software

– sensitive material, industrial secrets, government secrets

The Types of Pirated Files

• Music

– 2001, music files formed the largest category of piracy on the Net

– MP3 files traded using peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies

• Video

– Next biggest footprint on the bandwidth scale belongs to video

– anything from latest DVDs to sports games to music videos to pornographic videos

– far fewer pirates trade video than audio (bandwidth issues)

Types of Pirated Files (2)

• Pictures– The next in the chain, many are pictures of celebrities, movie stars,

rock stars, and pornographic pictures

• Software

– Next after pictures

• Texts

– least popular form of piracy

– people don’t like to read a large amount

– most books are cheap compared to music, DVDs, and software

– much harder to get a book into a file than music or video

Why Do They Do It?

• Because they want the stuff, and

• Because they can

When Do They Do It?

• Whenever they get the chance

How Do They Justify It?

• Some pirates couldn’t care less about justifying their piracy others do try

• Lets look at some of their example justifications and begin a look at the law

There’s no copyright notice on it

• and since there’s no copyright notice on an item it’s not copyrighted, right?

• Wrong!

• Almost every original work is copyrighted, even if no copyright notice appears on it

• Since Berne convention, it’s not necessary to include a copyright notice on a work though it’s a good idea

• If you don’t know for sure that a work is out of copyright and thus in the public domain, assume it is copyrighted

Everyone does it

– Everybody does it, sort of like speeding down the road

– We know there are laws against it but everybody’s still doing it

– Main difference between piracy and speeding is that the penalties for piracy are far more severe

– Enforcement does tend to concentrate on the most blatant offenders but…

It’s just a couple of files here and there

– More or less true at the start but like many things

– the habit tends to grow

– In extreme cases, piracy takes over the pirate’s life

– Most pirates keep their piracy under control as a hobby or a useful way of saving money.

Well, its ok to make a tape of a few tracks for a friend

• Can do this for yourself but it is not legal to give the copy to anyone else

• It is a violation of copyright

I’m not charging for it, so its ok

• Actually, distributing the files is the copyright violation in the eyes of the law

• It doesn’t matter if the violator is charging for the files or not

• The only difference that charging for files or distributing them freely can make is in the amount of damages that can be awarded

CDs (or DVDs) are too expensive

• That may be true but so are expensive sports cars and that doesn’t give someone the right to steal them

• Similarly no one has the right to steal the contents of a copyrighted work whether it is on CD, DVD, paper, canvas, or whatever

I’m promoting the artist by sharing their music

• But if the artist or copyright holder has not specifically granted permission to the person to distribute the track it’s illegal

It’s fair use

• Briefly, fair use is a provision of copyright law that lets you reproduce part or all of a work for reasons of comment, criticism, parody, and so on

• More on fair use later

• Basically, Fair Use does not allow anyone to violate copyright law

It’s there for free on the net

• The fact that copyrighted information is available on the Internet means nothing more than that someone else has violated ocpyright by making the file available for distribution

• It’s still illegal to download the file and to possess a copy of it

It’s freeware or shareware

It’s in the public domain

• A file is in the public domain for one of two reasons

• Someone has chosen to put a work whose copyright they hold into the public domain– Like a SW application so that others can freely use it

• Because the copyright has expired or been lost

• Many items in public domain are clearly marked as such

It’s copyleft

• serious pun on copyright

• A licensing mechansim designed to encourage the spread and development of the SW in question

• Under a copyleft agreement, any distribution of the SW must include its full source code.

• Anyone is free to modify or improve the SW and distribute it further, provided that they make their modifications and improvements available to all subsequent users

It’s not hurting anybody

• Creating a copy of a copyrighted work is assumed to cost the creator or copyright holder of the work the benefit that they should have derived from selling that copy of the work

• Thus piracy is considered to harm the creator or copyright holder

• In early 1990’s, Novell was reputed to have cornered 90% of the networking market in China - but had sold only one copy of NetWare there

• In late 1990’s, Novell’s share of the Chinese networking market dropped precipitously as the Chinese pirates gained enthusiasm for Windows NT server instead

Why is Piracy Wrong?

• Piracy is wrong because it’s stealing

• The law says that stealing is illegal

• Moreal codes say that Stealing is immoral

• End Chapter One of the Internet Piracy Exposed book