Benefits and drawbacks of piracy essay

The Alliance for Cultural Selection – UNESCO – functions to ‘prevent and fight against an ever-increasing level of piracy, in part brought about by new developments in the use of fresh technologies and their consequences upon cultural revenue. Piracy is usually detrimental to creators because it deprives them in the opportunity to earnings financially from their work. The publishing, music, audiovisual and software companies are the the majority of severely influenced sectors’. Critically discuss the good qualities and downsides arguments about the consequences of media piracy and position yourself in the debate.

(2500 Words)

This essay is going to critically go over and evaluate the pros and cons disputes surrounding mass media piracy as well as consequences. The goal is to evaluate what media piracy is usually and how it has changed the world’s ways to legislation and copyright laws. This kind of essay will endeavour to focus on the Political, Economical, Technological and Social elements of the effects of piracy, doing so by positioning me personally within the debate.

Media piracy can be defined as the the division of someone else’s work without their legal consent.

Karaginis (2011, p1) is convinced that piracy has developed as the result of a ‘global pricing problem’. Panethiere (2005, p9) refers to piracy while ‘the process of manufacturing unauthorised copies of protected materials and working with such copies by way of syndication and deal. ‘ Since the prices of media products have grown, so have the problems surrounding piracy, due to the require of consumers to get sourcing less expensive and more cost efficient means of availability. Lessig (2004, p62) says that ‘the recording market estimate which it loses about $4. 6th billion yearly to physical piracy’. This kind of emphasises precisely how serious a problem piracy can be, due to the fact that various media circulation companies are burning off out on huge amounts of profits.

A study was conducted at the begining of 2011, questioning participants whether or not they believed illegal peer to peer among the open public was acceptable. Results demonstrated that 70% of those asked believed that downloading illicit material from the net was suitable. The study also showed that ‘three away four, yet , felt it had been completely unacceptable to then simply sell that product to get profit’. http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-socially-acceptable-110228/. This emphasises just how large percentage from the public which have been willing to dedicate a crime and illegally discuss files veer various peer-to-peer (P2P) marketing sites.

Piracy can occur in lots of forms, even though as Lessig, L (2004, p67) argues, that the most significant form of piracy is commercial. He describes this since the ‘unauthorized taking of other peoples content within a commercial context. ‘ Nevertheless it is important to also consider the economical elements, political elements and scientific factors surrounding piracy and the consequences. A large rapidly growing number of individuals who happen to be illegally getting copyrighted material via several peer-to-peer systems. For many, piracy has become a methods to access mass media such as music, films and books intended for relatively inexpensive prices and frequently for free. This is certainly leading to large problems within the media distributing industries. There are severe consequences for those found to be breaching copyright laws. Bouchoux (2012, p42) believes that ‘one remedy in the combat against piracy of press products should be to lower the prices’. He argues the fact that main reason for piracy is the fact consumers do not believe that they should have to pay these types of high prices set by the owner.

‘It’s not moral, it’s certainly not right, but it’s generally there and it’s easy. There’s no that you stop you from executing it, and most likely never is going to be’. (Tassi, 2012). You can actually predict that if a single form of press copying is usually shut down, after that another fresh method can emerge instead. Napster is an example of a major P2P sharing site. Introduced in July 1999, Napster accumulated more than 10 , 000, 000 users within nine weeks. After 18 months, there were near to 80 million registered users on the site, showing just how vast the actual growth through this criminal companies are. In 12 , of 2k, a study demonstrated that a big proportion of shoppers were university students taking advantage of the ‘blazingly quickly Internet connections applied to most college campuses’. (H2G2, 2003). This kind of demonstrates how technology has changed into a major factor in the piracy issue, as the students had been taking advantage of technological advances in technology as a means of getting at free media.

Legal proceedings quickly close Napster straight down, however different services appeared to take their place. These kinds of continue to offer users using a service that permits them just one way of accessing the media they really want for free. There are many reasons as to the reasons people engage in media piracy. As shown above, nearly all illegal downloads are made by simply teenagers and young adults, mostly in university or college. Economic and social factors make this understandable why these downloads are being created, as the high prices of todays media can make it difficult for many to afford the legal merchandise, especially within the current downturn and on students budget. Expense may be a deciding aspect amongst the factors that people intend to pirate mass media. If the price is higher than they are willing to pay, they may experience inclined to find other ways of sourcing the media. One common justification with this kind of conduct is that the corporations providing the legitimate goods are tremendous and are producing millions of pounds. Therefore various people believe that one thieved piece of press would be unnoticeable for an organisation that large and profitable. Put simply, the view is that if the victims can’t feel the loss, robbing from them isn’t wrong.

‘The Robin Hood Effect’ may be applied to piracy in the circumstance of redistributing wealth and income so that economic inequality is lowered. In other words ‘taking from the rich and providing to the poor’. This is essentially what P2P sharing sites are doing, by providing people with a cheaper way of obtaining a common media through the large press corporation’s. Users may think that their sole purchase is usually not significant in the global scheme of sales, nevertheless if every consumer acquired this same motive, then the major companies providing the legit product or perhaps services could have no buyers and rapidly go out of business.

Panethiere, (2005, p9) discusses how ‘it is a saying of the law in many countries which a right with no remedy is usually, in effect, zero right at most. This is very well illustrated in the field of intellectual property where experts and other legal rights holders are really often struggling to enforce the rights the fact that law gives to them. This is a problem encouraged simply by piracy. ‘ Panethiere continue to be discuss how the P2P sharing sites too often disregard the rights in the many people whose income depends upon the recognition with their work and sales. Panethiere (2005, p11) also shows that P2P directories are ‘intentionally, deliberately, and systematically trying to profit from the creations of others’. For this reason, strict laws and regulations have been implement to prevent these kinds of piracy truly taking place. ‘Recorded music presents the musical life of the society in a particular time. If the most of a country’s performers are certainly not being from the commercial perspective recorded, after that their performs are not getting preserved and the losses to local traditions are incalculable’. (Panethiere, 2005). The Recording Industries Association of America are just one of many corporations working on investigating and abolishing piracy, working to protect ‘the intellectual property and First Amendment rights of designers and music labels; conduct consumer, market and specialized research; and monitor and review federal and state laws, restrictions and policies’ (RIAA 2014).

Despite the a large number of justification that exist in its defense, piracy is usually wrong. By causing unauthorized replications of any kind of form of press, the user is breaking the law and can in effect always be subject to municipal and criminal charges. Charges for piracy in the USA contain up to five years in jail and fines approximately $250, 000. It is questionable whether presented these large risks piracy is worth that (RIAA, 2014). However in response to this question being raised, there are very few cases of folks that have actually been caught and ultimately fined. Typically consumers are presented a crafted warning and several may get their Internet connection shut off. ‘Between the year 2003 (the start of RIAA lawsuits) and mid-2007, only about twenty, 000 people had been sued, fined or received a written warning’. When considering the unbelievable numbers of users of P2P sites daily, these figures on the number of individuals caught are minute. Roughly there are 146 million appointments to P2P sharing sites each day, which calculates at about 204, 500 views and minute and around 53 billion views a year. http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-piracy/. As Lewkes & Yar (2013, p50) state ‘what was once an activity of subway counter-culture, today becomes a usual of mainstream culture. ‘ This emphasises just how untroubled consumers are from the consequences they could come across when unlawfully accessing this kind of free media provided to them.

When viewing the issue of piracy, it may be essential to consider the artist’s landscapes. Some performers see the availability of free downloads available as confident (a form of free advertising) whilst various other artists may not see this in the same way. P2P allows users to obtain articles for free. In come cases it permits consumers to choose whether or not they such as the music and if they will help to make future purchases. This also with applies to motion pictures. Having viewed or believed an illegal download of poor quality, an individual can may decide to buy at reputable copy. Once again this relates back to Karaginis (2011) earlier point that piracy happens as a consequence of a ‘global pricing problem’. In the event that these forms of media were available at a lower price, users may well not look to these sites as a way of either a free or test out purchase.

Some may argue that piracy can be insulting and harmful to specialist and makers. “When you make unauthorized clones of someone’s creative job, you are taking something of value from the owner with no his or her permission” (Yar 2005). Many would strongly concur that piracy is stealing and therefore the manufacturers and music artists are more than likely to think betrayed by fans and viewers which their talents are unappreciated. When looking at artists, using P2P sites provides a knock upon effect through the industry. Not only does the artist lose money because of pirating nevertheless the recording labels, advertising companies and even the loyal supporters are also affected, as prices are inevitably raised in order to make up for all their loses (Castells, M & Cardoso, G, 2013) and so a circuit is perpetuated. Some Indy bands make a living solely from the revenue that they gain coming from legitimate revenue. Illegal downloads of their music make it extremely hard for them to still compete in the market and to produce their music. We can utilize the case of tribute rings. This could be seen as a form of piracy as the bands will be performing tunes that they themselves did not compose or develop. However , an individual may take pleasure in the song and thus purchase the first artists version. This helps the case that piracy can often have results. It can be seen as a form of marketing and eventually increase awareness, future sales and revenue.

Lessig (2004) believes that ‘the net has triggered piracy’. Stringent laws and legislation have been introduced to try to protect mass media producers via copyright infringements but Lessig believes that with the birth of the Internet, ‘the law has lost their sight of control, the laws function is less and less to support creativeness, and more and even more to protect specific industries against competition’. Technical advancements happen to be one of the main reasons to get the elevated use of piracy. The scale of piracy has become led mainly by shifts in technology and cultural practices. We could look back to the introduction of CDs and VCDs in the 1990s, for the growth of Dvd videos in the early on 2000s, and now on to the most recent growth of excessive Internet connections. The movie piracy organization, for instance, was transformed in China, with the introduction of DVD burners in 2003. This induced a huge increase in both the source and require of fake DVDs, as it became extremely easy to make copies of media and sell at a much cheaper price..

As we can now access virtually all media electronically, it gets rid of the need to include physical copies of Compact discs or DVD’s. This minimizes consumers wish for00 physical clones of materials, and therefore may well increase the chances of someone participating in piracy. Prior to the introduction from the new mass media technologies stated earlier, consumers could have often desired to buy a CD due to the authenticity, we. e. presentation, artwork and quality. Yet , now we can easily access digital music data of the same top quality as a COMPACT DISK, as well as having the ability to replace the physical art work, with digital photos. Presuming the consumer offers access to your computer it makes more impression for them to quickly download folders in the convenience of their own residence rather than going into a shop or perhaps buying a dodgy disk coming from someone selling pirated material in the street. Consequently by providing the public with technology that can deliver such solutions, it boosts the chances of piracy, particularly for individuals with a low income.

No one should condone piracy and the regulation needs to seal of approval down on it in order to allow production and sales of media merchandise to increase. I believe that despite the a large number of positive effects that piracy may have to get consumers and in some cases producers the laws and legislations must find a way to deter consumers for making this their selected way of obtaining materials, prior to the damages towards the media industries are not curable. One answer I feel could be effective is if the companies apply certain of their earnings to put into practice a stronger key code system. Where each customer will only be able to use supplies once, therefore making it harder to identical and harder to pass upon to others through P2P sites. If piracy continues to take place then it can be assumed that sales will continue to decrease. This makes it more and more difficult for the businesses to outlive, as a damage in sales will have a knock on effect through the media market.

References

Bouchoux, D (2012). Intellectual Real estate: The Law of Trademarks, Copyright laws, Patents and Trade Secrets. 4th male impotence. p42.

Castells, M & Cardoso, G (2013). Piracy Cultures: How a Growing Part of the Global Human population is Building Media Relationships Through Alternative Channels of Obtaining Content. Portugal: University or college of Lisboa.

Jewkes, Sumado a & Yar, M (2013). Handbook of sites Crime. New York: Routledge. p50.

Karagins, T (2011). Multimedia Piracy in Emerging Economies. United States of America: Interpersonal Science Exploration Council. p1.

Lessig, M (2004). Free Culture: What size Media Uses Technology As well as the Law To Lock Down Culture And Control Creativity. Ny: The Penguin Press. p62 – 82.

Panethiere, Deb (2005). The Persistence of Piracy: The Consequences for Creativity, for Traditions, and for Environmentally friendly Development. Un Educational: Clinical and Ethnic Organization. p9.

Tassi, S. (2012). You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Need to. Available: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/02/03/you-will-never-kill-piracy-and-piracy-will-never-kill-you/2/.

RIAA. (2014). Who Music Theft Affects. Available: https://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_details_online.

http://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A741089

http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-piracy/

70% with the Public Locates Piracy Socially Acceptable

1

Tweet