History and Overview of Piracy
Technological advancements in the years of the new millennium brought sweeping changes to the way data is transferred across the world. The rapid increase in the availability and acceptance of broadband internet connections has allowed people from the far reaches of the globe to download large multimedia files at much faster speeds than ever before.
Sharing files between computers became easier for the general population to understand. The once dominant UseNets and IRC channels slowly gave way to user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) peer-to-peer (P2P) programs where anyone can make a simple search to produce desirable results. Emerging technologies such as Wikis and BitTorrent coupled with old tools like email and instant messaging provided additional techniques where information can be transferred from one client to the next. Finally, the adoption of standardized media formats improved the sharing experience as a whole. All of these changes, old and new, provided the foundations for the present day's pervasive illegal distribution of copyrighted material.
Classifications
Since the piracy problem is pertinent across many fields, the definition of this term and possible classifications have been extremely controversial over the years. While members of the justice system used piracy and theft almost interchangeably, people on the other side of the aisle view this practice as a grand exaggeration of reality. To them, it is unfair to compare downloading a song with real life thievery, or in this case, the carnage of 17th century sea "pirates." Even the organizations representing the large media and software industries do not have standard, unified definition for what they are fighting. MPAA defines piracy as "a serious federal offense." As for the different kinds of piracy, MPAA only mentions "internet piracy of movies, DVD copying, illegal sales and theatrical camcording." To the ISAA, "making additional copies, or loading the software onto more than one machine, may violate copyright law and be considered piracy." RIAA defines piracy as "the illegal duplication and distribution of sound recordings." Each organization is representing its respective industry, only showing pertinent consumers mere pieces of the puzzle. A definitive, yet agreeable definition for piracy and an universal way to classify the many faces of this issue are needed.
Piracy can be classified into two categories - digital and physical. Digital piracy is the illegal duplication and distribution of copyrighted content via electronic means. While the usage of online (peer-to-peer) P2P networks is the most pervasive outlet of digital piracy, hosting copyrighted files such as MP3s, movies, and software on web servers, uploading copyrighted media on video sharing sites, and even simpler ways of distribution such as via email or instant messaging are also considered illegal digital piracy. Similar to digital piracy, physical piracy involves the illegal duplication and distribution of works, but in physical form. Digital media can be illegally burned onto mediums such as CDs, DVDs and sold for a fraction of the retail price. Books, newspapers, magazines, course packs, journals, research and reports can also be duplicated in physical form and distributed. In fact, the MPAA reports, for 2005 "62 percent of the $6.1 billion loss result from piracy of hard goods such as DVDs, 38 percent from internet piracy." [1] Physical piracy of media and other forms of content are much more pervasive on a global scale. This method of copyright infringement can be further classified into individual license, corporate to end-user, reseller and distributor violations.
Categorizing piracy by methodology only answers the "how" question. "Why" people pirate can be grouped by a measurement of intentionality. Kids and adults alike have different reasons for why they choose to download from P2P networks or buy counterfeit media. Some, however, are quite unaware of their actions while others are completely oblivious between what is right and wrong. In a recent ZDNet report on UK businesses running Windows, "Microsoft would not put a figure on how much it loses from unintentional piracy, but said that while 85 percent of UK small businesses run Microsoft software, only 15 percent pay for it." [2] All of this, of course, hinges on intentionality. Individuals who are completely aware of their actions are considered director facilitators of digital or physical piracy. From the acquirers of prerelease content, to the online intermediaries, from the distributors to the customers, this group includes people anywhere on the piracy chain. Intentional piracy usually involves some sort of monetary gain at the loss of the copyright holder. Individuals somewhat aware of piracy are usually consumers of counterfeit content. They understand to an extent what they are doing is wrong but choose to go ahead with it for various reasons such as personal enjoyment or curiosity. Educating these indirect facilitators the wrongs of piracy is the recording industries' best chance at curbing this problem. Finally, consumers completely unaware of piracy are usually those who are victims of counterfeit scammers or those whose computer or personal network has been hijacked to illegally contribute copyrighted material.
Origins
In the last millennium, there were only a few landmark innovations affecting the dissemination of media content. Gutenbergâs invention of the printing press in 1450 allowed for easy and inexpensive duplication of paper works. With the assistance of moveable type, productivity of scribes (now hired machine workers) increased exponentially. As profit margins shot through the roof, the publishing industry was born. In the late 1970s, early 1980s, the introduction of the Sony Walkman gave humans the capability to record audio while the videocassette system did the same for video. In the 1990s, the popularization of CD/DVD optical disk technology gave birth to the new era of digital recording. The 21st century ushered in the acceptance of new digital mediums. Combined with the enormous success of the internet, computers and newly developed network protocols took information sharing to a new level. Each one of these new "machines" included a "mechanism" for which a certain "media" was affected. Each innovation established or revolutionized an industry. Each provided a faster, even better way to spread information. Each, however, brought with it intellectual property issues, for each forced or is forcing policy makers to amend copyright standards.
| Media | Mechanism | Machine |
|---|---|---|
| Paper | Movable Type Publishing | Printing Press |
| Cassette/VHS Tape | Magnetic Recording | Walkman/VHS Machine |
| CD/DVD | Optical Disk Recording | CD/DVD Recorder |
| Standardized Computer Files | P2P/Torrent Networks | Personal Computer |
On June 1st, 1999, Shawn Fanning, a student from Northeastern University, released what would be called "the godfather of peer to peer programs" â Napster. At that time, although there were other technologies facilitating the sharing of media, "Napster specialized exclusively in music ... and presented a user-friendly interface." [3] Soon after being launched, this easy to use, cost-free program became wildly popular because everyday computer users had enough basic technical knowledge to contribute to the file sharing movement. Napster's sensation, however, was short lived. Its "facilitation of transferring copyrighted material raised the ire of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which almost immediately â in December 1999 â filed a lawsuit against the popular service." [4] Because Fanning earned profits through advertisements and operated the project via a client-server protocol with a centralized file list, the RIAA push for intentional copyright infringement ultimately succeeded.
Napster's immense success planted the seed for today's P2P debacle. On one hand, this innovation sparked the countermovement by the RIAA and other recording companies to curtail infringement. On the other hand, Fanning's concept of dedicated media distribution GUI programs inspired next generations of P2P coders to create iterations of the Napster design even more insusceptible to the current copyright laws. The 1986 "Betamax case" allowed Sony to manufacture VCRs "because the devices were sold for legitimate purposes and had substantial non-infringing uses" (Betamax). In the cases brought up against these new P2P projects, even though the prosecution was successful in proving the Betamax argument invalid, the victory in the courtroom only fueled the rapid spawning of new P2P projects.
In March 2001, the FastTrack protocol allowed for a more distributed network without a centralized sever. Faster computers in the network now has the ability to become supernodes, or machines with server-like capabilities to help out slower clients. Newer P2P programs like KaZaa, Grokster, and iMesh successfully implemented this protocol and gained millions of users. Two years later, "FastTrack was the most popular file sharing network, being mainly used for the exchange of music mp3 files. Popular features of FastTrack are the ability to resume interrupted downloads and to simultaneously download segments of one file from multiple peers." [5] During the same decade, true distributed network protocols such as the open source Gnutella and eDonkey 2000 also caught on with mainstream P2P file sharers. Likewise spawning other P2P clients, Limewire, Morpheus, and eDonkey. Compared to Napster, these newer networks were able to attain higher maximum speeds because every client also had the capability to share files. Also, since the copyrighted material were stored on individual computers, with the proper disclaimers, the P2P client companies were able to brush off the majority of legal accusations.
The acceptance of the mp3 format in the mid 1990s allowed users to compress songs into several megabyte files, all of which were easily distributable throughout the digital world. In the early 2000s, DivX, a newly developed video compression codec did the same for video. As more households switched over to broadband internet, the ability to transfer large files finally became plausible. However, even with DivXâs help, typical compressed DVD rips still hovered above 600 MB. Since traditional P2P protocols could not handle the new bandwidth demand efficiently, a newer distributive protocol called BitTorrent was quickly adopted.
BitTorrent was developed by Bram Cohen in 2001. By splitting large files into sizable pieces, data can be widely distributed and shared "without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources." [6] For a client to download additional data, one must supply requested chunks of the larger file to newer recipients. Cohen's implementation not only proved to be incredibly efficient, but also managed to exploit a legal loophole. While the initial releases of the BitTorrent system depended on trackers to operate, these servers answered the requests clients only by giving them the location of other computers who are concurrently sharing the same sought after file. Since tracker servers did not host any of the copyrighted content, the prosecution had a harder time shutting down these organizations. BitTorrent soon grew to become the sharing mechanism of choice.
Digital piracy only constitutes a portion of the whole picture. True, today's extensive counterfeit CD/DVD markets are largely fueled by the established presence of piracy in the digital realm. Resellers and distributors usually get the content to copy from online sources. But, the history of physical piracy can be traced back to the days of floppy disks and cassette tapes. In 1964, the Philips company brought compact audio cassette technology to the United States. Although there were other magnetic cartridge technologies available, Philip's decision to license the format for free made compact cassettes the most accepted recording medium during this time. [7] In the 1970s and 1980s, cheaper multi-track recording mechanisms for artists and the consumer compact cassette boom prolonged the popularity of this new medium. The trading of these recordable cassettes among music fans across the U.S. and U.K. via the mail was dubbed "cassette culture." [8] Acceptance of floppy disk technology starting from the early 1980s provided users an easy way to copy computer related files. Copyrighted computer software and games especially could be easily duplicated using these disks. Of course, anti-piracy campaigns also started as a reaction to these new fads. The British Phonographic Industry, a music trade group in the 1980s, launched an anti-piracy campaign with the slogan "Home Taping Is Killing Music." Similar to the RIAA's concerns today, the BPI was afraid that the rise of a new recording medium (in their case, the cassette tapes) would hurt legitimate record sales. In 1992, the Software Publishers Association produced an anti-piracy campaign centered around a video commercial called "Don't Copy That Floppy." [9]