Online Piracy of Movies and Music: Impacts, Causes, and Countermeasures, Essays (university) of Law

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A Look at Online

Piracy of Movies

and Music

Johnny Lam Randi Wagner Davina Vilaylak

Introduction

• (^) Online piracy is associated with copyright infringement o (^) Copyright infringement is defined as unauthorized distribution or use of copyrighted works
• (^) Opponents use the term online piracy because they see copyright violators as pirates that ravaged ships
• (^) Proponents use the term to recollect the romanticism of the pirate lifestyle which is the epitome of individual freedom and liberation

Introduction (cont.)

• (^) Online piracy mainly consists of audio and video content, but it can also include o (^) Software o (^) Books o (^) Other forms of intellectual property
• (^) Occurs mainly because it is cheaper and more convenient than most legal means

Introduction (cont.)

• (^) Online piracy is possible because of many technological factors o (^) High volume, inexpensive digital storage media o (^) Compression formats allowing files to be downloaded, copied and stored more easily o (^) High speed internet allowing for quick transfer of large files o (^) Peer to peer technology
• (^) There are mainly two intermediaries for online piracy: the internet and peer to peer file sharing

Some more interesting

tidbits…

Recent Online Piracy Legislation

• (^) The goal of SOPA & PIPA is to combat foreign websites that engage in counterfeiting and violate copyrights
• (^) Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) o (^) Allows intellectual property owners to shut down foreign sites that infringe copyrighted works
• (^) Protect IP Act (PIPA) o (^) Requires companies to block domain names of websites

Piracy of Video Content

• (^) One of the most commonly pirated materials are movies and television shows.
• (^) Posting a video on the Web that features copyrighted content is illegal, but the practice is still extremely common.
• (^) While many companies have taken measures in order to stop piracy, it still continues strongly.

Reasons for Piracy of Video Content

• (^) Cost
• (^) People often want to share short clips from videos with friends.
• (^) People want to edit down movies/TV shows for other creative reasons
• (^) Some have otherwise no access to TV show/movie
• (^) It’s fairly easy to do and can sometimes yield a profit

Piracy and the Entertainment Industry

• (^) A report on the study also mentioned the effect on television studios
• (^) NBC- removed its content from iTunes after being unable to settle a contract with Apple
• (^) Shortly afterward, NBC shows became much more frequently pirated
• (^) The study cites that piracy often occurs when there is no other alternative to viewing the content

Piracy and the Entertainment Industry

• (^) An article from Forbes.com suggests that the entertainment industry might in fact be exaggerating about the effect of piracy.
• (^) The article suggests there is no clear link between fewer sales and the amount of piracy o (^) It is also noted that, typically, the most pirated movies are also the highest performing at the box office

Strategies to Combat Piracy

• (^) An L.A. Times article also mentions how YouTube searches out its piracy violators. o (^) By having companies submit large sections of their work (movies or television shows), bots can search through the uploaded YouTube videos for content that is too similar to source material
• (^) It is also considered a felony to record in a movie theater.

Audio Piracy

• (^) While piracy of audio is little compared to the piracy of movies and television shows. It is still a step in showing how piracy evolved from just music to many other types of digital media.