Joseph Singh

MCS

Jonah Brucker Cohen

April 26, 2018

How is piracy hurting the case for copyright online?

Piracy, it’s a funny concept to me. For example piracy according to google means “the unauthorized use or reproduction of another’s work.” So when big named companies or YouTube for example uses out UGC and makes money off of it, isn’t that the same idea. I feel like we as a society of unprofessional superstars don’t get our recognition and money’s worth because of this.

With that being said I’d like to start off by saying piracy is already illegal in the United States, yet it still persist. Why is that? Maybe the penalty of piracy isn’t stern enough or maybe it is hard to catch the culprits, but it is a fact that this must be stopped.

On the other hand, I admit piracy may be a quick buck, and easy to do, but it is wrong. Imagine putting millions of dollars and Time and brain storming. After all that you release you content with the intentions of making money? You would be angry if someone was to make a profit out of your content with out your consent.

Now touching on the privacy aspect of the situation. Privacy in our day and age is hard to come by because how non private this generation is. when it comes to privacy and piracy, they don’t go hand in hand but they are related. I guess what I’m trying to say is with piracy comes an invasion of your privacy.

I can say the big Take away is that to combat piracy we must disipline the people who do this and with that being done privacy will finally fall back in its place and everything will be better. Make America Great Agian !

Before reading these articles I have never heard of piracy. Piracy is “The unauthorized use or reproduction of another work.” I never realized how big piracy is. I know people always stream movies, but I guess I never realized how much money some of these people are actually losing due to piracy. Now it is just so easy for anyone to just download any movie they want to. Although I am one of those people that actually still like to go to the movies instead of streaming everything, I do see why people do it. Like they say in the article “You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy will Never Kill You” movie tickets keep going up. “They have failed to realize that people want things to be easy. Physically going to the movies is hard enough without paying way too much for the privilege.’ Although the pirate bay website where people were able to easily download copyrighted material has shutdown, I still think there will still be piracy problems. It seems as though these hackers will always find a way.

Piracy has been around since the birth of the Internet. Most people have illegally downloaded a song, a movie, or an episode or two of a TV show. It is an (arguably) fast process, it’s pretty easy, and best of all it is “free”. However, when people download those songs or movies, they aren’t necessarily thinking about how this process is actually hurting these industries. It causes a loss to box office revenues and the money lost will not be trickled down to the hundreds of workers on a set, or the actors, or the director. Many independent filmmakers do not have the financial backing of well-known studios to pay off the debts of making the movie, so if piracy continues, it affects the actual people behind the art.

As “You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You” states, there are hundreds of torrent sites and they are quite hard to crack down on and ban. Many argue that there is no physical product being taken when movies are pirated; it is simply replaced with something else. People want things to be easy, which is why streaming and pirating are much higher than movie-theater attendance. Coupled with the fact that movie theater tickets are expensive, pirating seems like it is not going anywhere anytime soon.

The Pirate Bay was one of the most popular pirating sites on the Internet until authorities cracked down on it a few years ago. Apparently, it maintained tracker files needed for users to download the “torrents”. This means that it was torrents and not actual copyrighted material.

Overall, piracy hurts revenue that is supposed to be gained from consumers, It hurts a movie more when it is pirated before theatrical release rather than after.

Growing up we learned how to use computers and different websites that were on the internet. A lot of us used these sites to download music which at that point in time we didn’t know it was illegal. The action of taking someone else’s work and using it like it’s yours is considered piracy. People still commit piracy to this day. Everyday someone is downloading the new Nicki Minaj album or Cardi B album trying to see which album is better. Some people don’t really know the difference someone committing piracy or someone just streaming something. The difference is in the action. Piracy is you taking something from someone and not paying for it rather than having a service that you pay for and you can watch everything you want no matter where you are.

The act of piracy started when kids would download the new songs out at that time on sites like LimeWire. Nobody really knew what was going on then anyway . We were all innocent and just thought we were cool for having the new songs or albums out there. Little did we know that it would become such a big thing today. As the years went on we learned more and more about these computers we had and kept finding new and approves ways to get what we want from the web. We found new sites and new ways of not getting caught. The act of piracy is kind of like hacking.

Piracy has been an issue for as long as I can remember. For me for it started with music, I used to download music from Lime Wire when I was younger, a lot of us do not know that it is illegal to download music or movies from the internet. I know that I did not know that it was illegal when I was younger. I feel like for those who do not know the difference between streaming and piracy which is why i say some of us don’t know that it is illegal.  In one of the articles thy mentioned the movie The Interview, this movie has been band because of its “shaming” of the North Korean leader. From what I understood from the rest of this article is that Netflix has spent an insane amount of money in order to shorten the time between movies are in the theater and when they are available on their site.

After reading the articles it was interesting to see how this all started. The way people are able to just hack into certain content to access free things like shows and movies. I do think that there isn’t any privacy when it comes to this factor because people are able to get access to certain things that people work hard to create. It is crazy how easily you can get into things through the internet and with the technology we have now.

Piracy is the act of attacking with the article about the movie “The Interview” they talk about not only what happened with the movie and how it got hacked but they talked about how people prefer to watch movies in the comfort of there homes and how renting is better than owning. They talk about why there is piracy and the reasons for people wanting to hack certain content in order to get others to be able to watch stuff for free.

Although I feel as if it is defeating the purpose of the people creating the content. It makes it harder for them to make any content because of the people stealing it from them. Another thing, this is probably why they started Netflix and Hulu etc because people like watching movies in the comfort of there home.

in other words, I feel that we have less privacy now because everything goes out there and there are hackers who do hack into our accounts even our personal information like bank accounts. and as technology keep getting bigger it will just make it easier for hackers to get these content from us.

I forgot the actual meaning of Piracy and had to look it up. Piracy is means the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted content.  I didn’t realize that Piracy was that big of an issue with regard to movies and that the film industry was losing billions of dollars. With regards to illegal movies most people look at is saving some money either by paying for it half price or by viewing it for free. Piracy and Privacy with regard to the Internet/movies and copyrighting has been a huge problem over the years. There has been some headway like the SOPA and PIPA issues but till this day the problems with piracy haven’t been solved and probably won’t due to the loopholes of copyright laws. The company Pirate Bay an Internet leader in unauthorized duplications of copyrighted content was under fire for their business. Even though they were a huge site which had millions of viewers they were somehow breaking the law even though they had a loophole. According to the reading The Pirate Bay Shutdown, stated “The Pirate Bay maintained a database of the tracker files needed for users to download the “torrents’–not the actual copyrighted content.  Because you need a separate piece of software to actually use the torrent file and illegally download the content, The Pirate Bay saying it personally doesn’t break copyright law is technically accurate.” (Seppala, Pg. 6) This is correct and this is a major loophole that helps with piracy.

Copyrighting online is a major umbrella that covers most people and their work of arts. But copyrighting violations still occur with regard to piracy. Piracy vultures know what they can use to try and protect themselves and one of those ways is the “torrent” feature. In the article, You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You, the author states, “As technology continues to evolve, the battle between pirates and copyright holders is going to escalate, and the pirates are always, always going to be one step ahead.” (Tassi, Pg. 2) I completely agree with this because if you are a thief and you find a way to steal and make a way where you “technically” aren’t stealing and can get away with it then that thief will remain a thief and keep doing it. Especially of there is a huge audience for their business or brand. The government should be able to get around this and put a stop to it but still there isn’t a solution. Why? I believe our instituted government laws unfortunately plays a part and hopefully in the near future Hollywood and the filmmaker industry will have a solution to piracy and will finally have some “genuine” privacy. In addition, the copyright laws need to be updated for more protection and privacy!