What is Piracy
Media
piracy is a activity involving illegal copying and using computers programs,
music, films, video games etc. The term “piracy” should influence the awareness
and moral judgments of users, convincing them the illegal download is just as bad
as attacking and robbing the ships from goods.
(http://wondergressive.com/hollywood-pirates-hollywood/)
History of Piracy
About ten years ago we could buy counterfeit CDs
on the “Stadium of Decade” or another market place ( music, software for 20-30
zł). Then we could even record first CDs at home, but it was very expensive. After
a few years came the golden era of CD
piracy with prevalence of recorders CD-R/RW (everyone was able to buy a recorder
and they were attached to PCs). Next was invented a DVD player with 8.5 GB, which could record about 7 common CDs.
(http://proline.pl/?p=MSI+DH-24AWSH)
After CD/DVD piracy came the internet piracy, which was a huge technological step forward and became the main tool for media pirates. Nowadays the internet is still the leader in Illegal copying, we could find everything online starting from a single piece of music ending with video games (even these which had a premiere a week before).
How we can download
Mainly we
use P2P applications (peer to peer). The most popular are: Kaaza, eDonkey,
eMule, Overnet, dozens of torrents like Azureus, BitTornado and many others applications. But we can download
directly from www websites named warez by googling words “crack” or “serial.”
(http://www.ayudaleyprotecciondatos.es/2012/10/10/sanciones-datos-emule/)
(http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/Atrinsic-Counters-Apple-30-Cut-Practice-with-Kazaa-for-iPhone-iPad-2.jpg/)
Piracy in the World and Poland
On this
websites we can check out which countries have the highest rate of piracy in
the entire world.
How to fight with piracy
To fight
with piracy has been created an international organization named BSA (Business
Software Alliance). This corporation works together with the local police and
tries to locate and confiscate illegal copies. Companies apply also special
control like: network control, inventory of software, verifying the legality of
software, the agreement with employees and responsibility for software.
(http://www.portaltips.com/2011/05/¿como-remover-la-proteccion-anticopia-de-un-dvd-y-blu-ray/)
I bought and downloaded some counterfeits about 10 - 13 years ago when I was young, but now I always buy legal copies of music, computer games, movies etc. Occasionally when a program is too expensive for me (like ArchiCAD) and I’ve to work on it I decide to download the pirate copy (but for a non-commercial purpose).
1. Do you also download illegal copies?
2. What do you think about the future of piracy?
Comments
In terms of losses from piracy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0. I doubt that this video is totally accurate but it definitely provides a nice, alternative view of the situation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h2dF-IsH0I - this presentation deals with the recently proposed and abandoned regulations concerning copyright violation.
Is piracy morally justified? I think that definitely not. Stilling is always bad. I don’t find this justifications like “I can’t afford that so I can take it without paying for it” convincing. If we go along that philosophy there is nothing bad in stilling form supermarket or stilling cars. Whether we like it or not many people (artists, programmers etc. ) put a lot of their effort to make those products available for us and thy deserve honest payment for their work. I agree that many prices are very high and they are not related to the quality of the product in any way. But that is a matter o the producers politic and their business model, and it’s up to us to decide if we buy it or not. Stilling their products is no solution to the problem in any way.
And now we get to the second question. I think that the future of piracy is related to producers business strategies. As Apple’s ITunes shown making small profit on single song downloaded from the Internet (that killed projects like Napster in my opinion) is an excellent idea. And sooner all producers of entertainment and software will understand that and will go along that path the better. For them and for all of us. And that will be an end of internet piracy. Of course it won’t be irradiated in 100% but will be reduced to such level that won’t be a big issue any more.
2. We have to change the thinking of companies - if something can be copied it is not stealing. They want us to think that: CP is same as MV which is ridiculous.
Would you realy call it stealing if someone would copy your car, but yours still remain in your possession- the pirate would only have ideal copy of it. I know that you would feel like victim, because you payed for it not him, but this is not like stealing! It is something different!
We don't have in the real life same operation as in the cyberworld, that is why we have to have different law for it.
From the one side producers can protect their pockets by creating more and more complicated procedures of encrypting their work (like blizazard with diablo3 which disallow you to play without connection to the internet and their servers.) From the other is it really worth wouldn't it discourage players? There is a thin line between making players happy and making money.
Now, it is also true that many things have changed in the world of software and media distribution and with the era of digital distribution piracy is becoming somehow obsolete. Because of the lower prices on music, games and movies, piracy is being “left behind”. I believe that most people, if given the possibility, prefer not to break any laws and get their products legally, resorting to piracy only as a desperate measure.
Another thing is that with such a big availability of products for free in internet there is really a big temptation not to buy them for high prices. What I think is that if you want to get rid of the problem, you have to lower the prices to be more appealing.
Piracy is such a big word. Like pirates that stole things as well as looted other ships, smelly, ugly and awfull. I don't see the analogy, but hey, people tend to be stupid. Piracy is good. Don't get me wrong, stealing is bad, but digital piracy is all about spreading information. I'd like to know something before I buy something. If I like it why wouldn't I buy it? Why should I spend 60euro for a game that I'm going to play for 1h and never touch it again. Demos were such a good solution, but developers got cocky and lazy. Let's bring the pain!
I'm no pirate tho..... I buy all my stuff from verified retailers, looking at You steam :)
I see also problem in people. If something is easy to download like music albums why spend money and buy it? Unfortunately described way of thinking is quite frequent. We should respect artists, programmers etc. and if their products make us happy we should support them.