piracy
What is piracy?
Piracy is defined as the
unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work. Many people see it as a crime that doesn't
really matter because no-one is getting hurt. However, money generated by
piracy could be used by gangs of criminals to fund the sale of drugs and guns.
You may come across illegal pirate copies of DVDs or CDs in markets, car boot sales or online auction sites. They will be cheaper than they are on the high street, so they may have been recorded on a camcorder at the back of a cinema or downloaded illegally from the internet.
The following factors can help tell if something is pirated
"Protecting intellectual property rights requires using several different approaches while adjusting to a marketplace with a never ending appetite for new content. Even though the general public may think of piracy as a victimless crime, this form of copyright infringement damages the creative professional's ability to earn a living from his work."
You may come across illegal pirate copies of DVDs or CDs in markets, car boot sales or online auction sites. They will be cheaper than they are on the high street, so they may have been recorded on a camcorder at the back of a cinema or downloaded illegally from the internet.
The following factors can help tell if something is pirated
- the cover not being good quality
- if the film has just been released at the cinema, any DVD of it will definitely be illegal
- if the DVD packaging has any foreign languages on it, or if the description or cast list doesn't match the film you're buying, it's probably been produced on someone's home computer
- if the cover of the DVD doesn't have a film certificate on it that you recognise, such as 'PG', '15' or '18', it's likely to be a pirate copy
"Protecting intellectual property rights requires using several different approaches while adjusting to a marketplace with a never ending appetite for new content. Even though the general public may think of piracy as a victimless crime, this form of copyright infringement damages the creative professional's ability to earn a living from his work."
what is being done to stop piracy?
Filmmakers put a video at the
beginning of movies suggesting that illegal downloads are equal acts of crime
to stealing/shoplifting. For example, the “Piracy. It’s a crime” advert.
Celebrity musical acts like Metallica frequently speak out against piracy when talking to their fans. This can be influential as many people are inspired by celebrities and will listen to what they say.
Music companies have been experimenting with ways to put anti-copying software onto the CDs they sell. Software programs can be created to require authorization codes or online registration forms that serve to make piracy more difficult because they are only given with legal copies. For downloadable content, digital rights management systems limit the number of devices that can play a particular movie or song in order to stop people from sharing unauthorized copies.
Lawsuits may seem like an obvious way to stop piracy, but legal action is typically a last resort. With the global nature of the Internet, it is time consuming and expensive to track down all the parties that would be involved in a lawsuit. Piracy laws also vary from country to country, making enforcement rather difficult.
case studies on the prevention of piracy
prevention by technology
"Lights, camera, jamming"
An American professor for the college of Georgia, Gregory Abowd, believes that due to the invention of inexpensive digital cameras there is a way to thwart them. With the illegal filming of first-run movies increasing dramatically, Abowd and his team have developed a device that can detect the presence of a digital camera/camcorder and keep it from capturing usable images.
It is thought that researchers have been trying to develop effective ways to jam a camera for years,
however none have been as successful as Abowd and his group at Georgia. The Georgia Tech approach, which combines methods of detecting a camera and the means to automatically prevent it from taking pictures, achieves these two goals in one device, using infrared light to spot cameras.
To locate a camera, the researchers exploited a component of many digital cameras and camcorders: the charge-coupled device (CCD) that converts light collected by a camera’s lens into an image stored in its memory. Because of its shape, a CCD is retro-reflective, meaning it reflects incoming light back out at the same angle. Taking advantage of this, the Georgia Tech device shines infrared LED light, which is invisible to the human eye, at a distance of about 20 feet, then collects video of these reflections with a camcorder. Then the video of the reflections is transferred to a computer, where it’s sent through image-processing algorithms that pick out infrared light bouncing back. And to decrease the chances of false positives – infrared light reflecting off other objects, such as eyeglasses and earrings – the researchers added image-processing algorithms that account for the specific shape of the CCD reflections and those of other objects.
In the second step, to block the camera from taking pictures, the device uses a projector that emits a narrow beam of white light directly at a CCD. The beam saturates the CCD with varying intensities of light, forcing the camera’s electronics to constantly adjust, and ultimately producing large white splotches that cover about one-third of the recorded scene. The result: a low-quality, if not worthless, recording or photograph.
It is thought that researchers have been trying to develop effective ways to jam a camera for years,
however none have been as successful as Abowd and his group at Georgia. The Georgia Tech approach, which combines methods of detecting a camera and the means to automatically prevent it from taking pictures, achieves these two goals in one device, using infrared light to spot cameras.
To locate a camera, the researchers exploited a component of many digital cameras and camcorders: the charge-coupled device (CCD) that converts light collected by a camera’s lens into an image stored in its memory. Because of its shape, a CCD is retro-reflective, meaning it reflects incoming light back out at the same angle. Taking advantage of this, the Georgia Tech device shines infrared LED light, which is invisible to the human eye, at a distance of about 20 feet, then collects video of these reflections with a camcorder. Then the video of the reflections is transferred to a computer, where it’s sent through image-processing algorithms that pick out infrared light bouncing back. And to decrease the chances of false positives – infrared light reflecting off other objects, such as eyeglasses and earrings – the researchers added image-processing algorithms that account for the specific shape of the CCD reflections and those of other objects.
In the second step, to block the camera from taking pictures, the device uses a projector that emits a narrow beam of white light directly at a CCD. The beam saturates the CCD with varying intensities of light, forcing the camera’s electronics to constantly adjust, and ultimately producing large white splotches that cover about one-third of the recorded scene. The result: a low-quality, if not worthless, recording or photograph.
prevention by law
lawsuits against music piracy by Recording Industry Association of America
Jammie Thomas-Rasset was one of 18,000 people the Recording Industry Association of America sued between 2003-2008 in an attempt to discourage people from downloading songs from filesharing sites like Kazaa. They sued her on behalf of six record labels in 2006 over two dozen songs.
Joel Tenenbaum is facing a $675,000 fine as he was found liable last July for illegally downloading and distributing 30 copyrighted songs. He was ordered to pay $22,500 per song by a federal jury in Boston. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which sued Tenenbaum on behalf of four music labels, claimed to have found more than 800 illegally downloaded songs in a shared folder on Tenenbaum's computer. The case, however, was based on a representative sample of 30 of those songs. However, his lawyer challenged the size of the fine and the constitutionality of the copyright laws, and the judge lowered the fine. Despite this, even the reduced amount of $67,500 is likely to be as unaffordable for Tenanbaum, and could bankrupt him. It was argued that the size of the fine should be reduced due to the fact that the copyright law it was based on was meant to be applied to commercial copyright infringers, not individuals such as Thomas-Rasset and Tenenbaum. The RIAA, meanwhile, has argued that damages should be based not on the price of legally purchasing the songs, but on the potential lost sales resulting from the illegal online distribution of copyrighted songs.