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Week 11: Piracy

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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.

 http://globalstudy.bsa.org/2011/
 http://chartsbin.com/view/1186

Amongst 27 countries in the European Union, Poland is in the fifth position from the end with 54%. The countries with the highest percent of piracy are: Lithuania (55%), Greece (61%), Romania (63%) and Bulgaria (64%) while with the smallest rate are: Luxemburg (20%), Austria (23%) and Belgium, Denmark and Sweden with 24%.  Generally, the common citizen of Poland has 4/10 legally purchased copies of programs.



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

Tomek Niezgoda said…
The market for good quality software has grown dramatically over the last few years. Now, we can buy really good programs for a few dollars. There is not much reason to download applications illegally any more. Also, it's just easier to visit iTunes or GOG.com or any other place on the web and get them there. There are also various versions that you can either use for free with some limitations or try before paying.
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.
15 December 2013 at 12:11
Sylwia said…
According internet sites mentioned by Patryk in his article Western Europe and North America countries have significantly lower percentage number of piracy than for example in East Europe. As we can see, the problem of piracy is connected with level of development of particular country. To me it is the core of it are money, which we earn. If we can't afford the application, we just download it. The same is with music, as it is not a basic need we won't buy it because we need other things more, but at the same time everyone want's to be part of cultural life too. I understand that everything costs, but in case of applications, games, movies and so I think there are overpriced for our reality. If the prices were more affordable for regular person I think the problem wouldn't be so huge.
15 December 2013 at 17:30
Paweł Jóźwiak said…
I think that asking everyone on a public forum if they download illegal copies from the Internet is quite risky. But to be honest I think that at some point everyone used some form of illegal programs or listened to illegally downloaded music.

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.
15 December 2013 at 17:42
Natalia said…
1.Of course no! It is illegal and I would never do such thing. :)

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.
15 December 2013 at 19:39
Unknown said…
There is nor future od illegal downlads. It just reach it's top. You can download anything you reallu want from torrents. Torrent filens ca not be conrolled bracause you leach fone part of a file from one persone and the other part from the other one .in this way it cannot traced by any means, beaceuse u download only the part of it. And in IT part of something means nothing to the all. I usually download movies from the interent, because of the price of the ticket to the movie theather..
15 December 2013 at 22:47
lukasz-anwajler said…
Piracy will always exist, because you can always offer something valuable for free and people can save money thanks to that. The good example is origin of this term - pirates existed for a long time, and they also exist now :) I don't think we can eliminate it. If it's not present in the way we can see it nowadays, it'll transform into something different - using different channels or exchanging different goods, but still it'll not go away. As long as communication between people is stable (internet) we'll have access to this kind of stuff. And even before the Internet you could always copy a book, CD music or game.
15 December 2013 at 23:09
Sergio Cosentino said…
I believe that the issue of piracy is competently different here in Poland, than in the western countries. The truth is that when first personal computers were available and software for them could be bought, in Poland all the available software was illegal. In the times of PRL there was no possibility of actually bringing legal software, so people sold illegal copies and everybody was okay with it. There were no laws against piracy, I mean people selling self-made copies were even paying the taxes! My point is that the concept of piracy is still much different here that in other countries, simply because it was distorted.
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.
16 December 2013 at 09:01
Unknown said…
Firstly I must ask why you are asking and will you use my answer against me? :D If yes then my answer is NO obviously but… I download variety of files from the internet but these are not illegal copies… these are rather backup copies… :D Sometimes after I download and test some software, game I just buy it to support developers but if it is nothing special I just don’t use it anymore. Piracy was on this world, is and will be. Huge websites are closed every day but still new are growing even faster. The Pirate Bay should be locked long time ago and now they changed domain again and currently resident in Peru and this is the best answer. Future of piracy is cloudy but still it will survive.
16 December 2013 at 09:35
Seisyll said…
First of all there are things which you just don't really have access to in Poland. Great example are TV shows. Arrow for example was transmitted in Poland one year after the TV show was started. Also we have a law that allows you to download and use whatever you downloaded uncommercially and when you don't distribute it further.

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.
16 December 2013 at 10:44
armandstanczak said…
Do You really expect that someone will answer the first question? (Macha propably did but edited his answer :P )
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 :)
18 December 2013 at 09:26
elos said…
Please let me ignore first question. I think the future of piracy depends on many factors like: protection systems, games and applications prices, the law, people thinking. It depends also on type of media f.e. cost of music CD seems to be quite fair but prices of games are definitely too big. My favorite game which I play on console is FIFA. New version is released each year but changes are very subtle, changed menu design, updated teams, updated players statistics, difficult to find changes in gameplay. The price? About 200zl. Fortunately I have no big problems with it because I play together with friends and we usually buy new versions together. Summing up companies should think about prices strategy, maybe more profitable would be selling more cheaper products than less expensive products.

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.
18 December 2013 at 11:34
Seisyll said…
How the hell did you know o.O
26 December 2013 at 11:39
Unknown said…
Great post! Really insightful. I have not monetized by blog in any way, I didn’t even know where to begin. but you’ve given some helpful tips.
3 June 2017 at 12:34
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