How Does Piracy Affect The Digital World?

The war against piracy is an endless struggle for several creators and this problem is just increasing day by day. The amount of losses piracy has caused to the entertainment and software industry is in the billions and isn’t bound to stop anytime soon. Major anti-piracy laws have been enforced but has been rendered useless.

Here below are the types of piracy that has affected millions of creators and innovators.

Software, Music Piracy & Video Piracy

The software industry has been heavily affected by piracy due to the replication and supply of many expensive programs. Below are the different methods used for software piracy.

• End User Piracy: When the end user copies a software without the licensing. This might include both casual copying and distribution between individuals or a group.
• Pre-Installed Software: Installing a software from one copy to multiple computers is pre-installed software. As a consumer, you should be on the lookout for proper documentation when purchasing a software, to ensure that you’re getting what you paid for.
• Online Piracy: If the publisher hasn't authorized copies for distribution and they are available on the internet for download, it’s online piracy.
• Counterfeiting: Making illegal copies of software and distributing them with the help of a medium like a disc or reproducing the packaging without the licenses is counterfeiting. The packaging will fail to have a seal or number to prove the originality.

Media piracy has had a severe impact on the entertainment industry. It has affected millions of producers, artist and distributors.

• Music Piracy: The process of piracy in the music industry is straightforward. Copying and distributing copies of music without the consent of recording artists or the copyright-holding company. This is a case of copyright infringement and it all started with P2P software Napster.

• Movie piracy: Creating copies of movies has had a severe impact on the entertainment industry. Copies are released instantly after the release of the movie. These pirated movies are predominantly found in torrent websites.

Anti-Piracy Methods

Strong IP rights and stronger legislation

Both the media industry and software industry has to work towards enforcing laws to trace online piracy and bring in the judiciary system to punish these perpetrators. Many websites like megaupload, rapidshare, piratebay have already been shut down after such legal actions.

Copyrights 

Copyright is the most common law implemented to protect property. This protection is provided to the authors of the work be it music, movie or software. It also allows the author to incur profit for their creativity, encouraging them produce more work in the future.

Technologies to identify and trace illegal distribution

Media piracy mainly happens with the help of file-sharing technologies. This has been tackled with watermarking methods that can trace the illegal distribution of software’s and media. IP's are kept on tab to identify the downloading activity with the help of bandwidth usage.

Prune the web for pirated content

Accidental piracy has gotten increasingly popular where most of the individuals indulge in file sharing without knowing the laws. Public platforms like YouTube and Soundcloud enable users to share and promote music, without a case of copyright infringement.

Public awareness campaigns

Public awareness is the biggest weapon against piracy at the moment. Introducing these elements and make them understand its effects will have a great impact. This ongoing process has already seen strong results leading to reduction in piracy of both media and software.

Apart from the above methods, there are endless other efforts being channeled into anti-piracy campaigns.

Now that you know the consequences of piracy and the losses that it can potentially bring to the entertainment and digital world, it’s your duty to seek the advice of a piracy lawyer to patent and protect your digital assets.