Digital Piracy

Narratives

• Trevor is doing a project for school. Since he is very adept at video mashups, he decides to use clips from different TV shows and movies to assist him with the project. After completing the masterpiece, Trevor is very excited about his work and wants not only his class but also the whole world to see his creation. He decides to post the video onto YouTube with an obscure name to avoid detection and uploads it onto five other video sharing services DailyMotion, Revver, GoFish, MySpace Video, and Facebook Video to act as mirrors. He then embeds the clip onto his blog and uses IM, email, text messaging, and Twitter to spread the word about this update.

Involves the use of the following applications: Adobe Premiere, Audacity, Trillian, Thunderbird

And services: YouTube, Daily Motion, Revver, GoFish, MySpace, Facebook, Textem, and Twitter.

• Questions raised from this scenario:
  • What constitutes fair use?
  • Do copyright laws impede creativity?

• Trevor and friends are hanging out in his basement on a lazy Sunday afternoon. They just watched a trailer of an upcoming blockbuster film and the whole group is very excited -- they can’t wait to get in line to see the first midnight showing. Unfortunately, the film’s release date is one week away. With nothing else to do, Trevor proposes that he could obtain a copy of the film via a private torrent network whose administrator is a member of an infamous release group. A few of his friends brings up the concern about piracy, but since the group is at Trevor’s house nobody objects -- in fact, a few never realized this was possible, and the majority of the group wants Trevor to download the file and burn them a copy.

Involves the use of the following applications: Quicktime, uTorrent, PeerGuardian 2, DivX Player, XviD Video Codec, AC3 Audio Codec

And services: <Torrent Website>, <Release Group>

• Questions raised from this scenario:
  • Who should be more responsible for the piracy? The release group or the end user?
  • How does group mentality play affect piracy?

• After seeing Trevor successfully obtain the movie, one of Trevor’s friends decide to get more movies from a P2P program he installed a while back. After firing the application up, his computer freezes. Not knowing what happened, Trevor’s friend does a simple force reboot and after the restart, everything seems fine. In the background processes, however, the P2P program automatically shared his whole media folder to the rest of the P2P community without telling the user.

Involves the use of the following applications: <P2P Application>

• Questions raised from this scenario:
  • If a P2P program automatically shares all the media on a user's computer and the user is accused of copyright infringement, who should take the blame? The P2P company or the end user?
  • The tech companies hired by the media industries to track down internet pirates is known for only targeting uploaders, rarely downloaders. Is this technique working?

Introduction to Piracy

In the simplest terms, piracy is obtaining something without the proper rights of legal ownership. In a broader sense, piracy represents the whole range of theft. Like what the traditional usage of this term suggests, the actions committed by ruthless sea barbarians in the early 1700s are not so different from the methods Digital Natives use to wrongfully acquire or distribute copyrighted material online. Yes, the recent surge in piracy of Disney’s Pirates 3 movie is, least to say, ironic.

The main driving force behind the argument against piracy centers on the degree of copyright infringement. The creator of a new piece of work has exclusive rights or ownership over all personal products of labor. Exclusive rights include but are not limited to distribution, reproduction, perform and make derivatives of the original. Under United States and most foreign law, copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of any works or materials secured by copyright. Such actions usually impinge on the copyright owner’s exclusive rights, without a license to do so. Copyrights and the consequences of copyright infringement help protect intellectual property, protect ownership, and promote the society's technological progress.

Classifications of Piracy

• Digital
• Physical

Current Methodologies

Digital

• Over the internet by means of:
  • Direct connection
  • P2P networks
  • FTP and web servers
  • Auctions
  • Low-quality mediums
• Violation of fair use
  • Media sharing sites

Physical

• Individual license violation
• Corporate to end-user
• Reseller and distributor

Intentionality

• Totally aware
  • Direct facilitator of digital or phsyical piracy
  • Usually includes monetary gains
• Somewhat aware
  • Consumers of pirated material
  • Indirect facilitators of digital piracy
• Unaware
  • Individuals with computers indirectly contributing copyrighted media

Examples

• Specific examples of programs and services for each of the methodologies above

Piracy Among Digital Natives

== Piracy