Copyright Infringement

Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works. The copyright holder is typically the work's creator, or a publisher or other business to whom copyright has been assigned. Copyright holders routinely invoke legal and technological measures to prevent and penalize copyright infringement.

Copyright infringement disputes are usually resolved through direct negotiation, a notice and take down process, or litigation in civil court. Egregious or large-scale commercial infringement, especially when it involves counterfeiting, is sometimes prosecuted via the criminal justice system. Shifting public expectations, advances in digital technology and the increasing reach of the Internet have led to such widespread, anonymous infringement that copyright-dependent industries now focus less on pursuing individuals who seek and share copyright-protected content online, and more on expanding copyright law to recognize and penalize, as indirect infringers, the service providers and software distributors who are said to facilitate and encourage individual acts of infringement by others.

Estimates of the actual economic impact of copyright infringement vary widely and depend on other factors. Nevertheless, copyright holders, industry representatives, and legislators have long characterized copyright infringement as piracy or theft – language which some U.S. courts now regard as pejorative or otherwise contentious.

Terminology

The terms ''piracy'' and ''theft'' are often associated with copyright infringement. The original meaning of ''piracy'' is "robbery or illegal violence at sea", but the term has been in use for centuries as a synonym for acts of copyright infringement.T. Dekker
''Wonderfull Yeare''
1603, reprinted by University of Oregon ''Theft'', meanwhile, emphasizes the potential commercial harm of infringement to copyright holders. However, copyright is a type of intellectual property, an area of law distinct from that which covers robbery or theft, offenses related only to tangible property. Not all copyright infringement results in commercial loss, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that infringement does not ''easily'' equate with theft.'' Dowling v. United States'' (1985), 473 U.S. 207, pp. 217–218.

This was taken further in the case ''MPAA v. Hotfile'', where Judge Kathleen M. Williams granted a motion to deny the MPAA the usage of words whose appearance was primarily "pejorative". This list included the word "piracy", the use of which, the motion by the defense stated, serves no court purpose but to misguide and inflame the jury.

"Piracy"

The term "piracy" has been used to refer to the unauthorized copying, distribution and selling of works in copyright. The term "word-pirates" has been used as far back as 1603 to described unauthorized printing. The first use of the word 'piracy' itself to describe unauthorized copying dates back to at least 1700, as attested to in Edward Ward's 1700 poem ''A Journey to Hell'':

''Piracy, Piracy,'' they cry'd aloud, / What made you print my Copy, Sir, says one

The practice of labeling the infringement of exclusive rights in creative works as "piracy" predates statutory copyright law. Prior to the Statute of Anne in 1710, the Stationers' Company of London in 1557, received a Royal Charter giving the company a monopoly on publication and tasking it with enforcing the charter. Article 61 of the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) requires criminal procedures and penalties in cases of "willful trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy on a commercial scale." Piracy traditionally refers to acts of copyright infringement intentionally committed for financial gain, though more recently, copyright holders have described online copyright infringement, particularly in relation to peer-to-peer file sharing networks, as "piracy".

Richard Stallman and the GNU Project have criticized the use of the word "piracy" in these situations, saying that publishers use the word to refer to "copying they don't approve of" and that "they ublishersimply that it is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them."

"Theft"

Copyright holders frequently refer to copyright infringement as theft, "although such misuse has been rejected by legislatures and courts". The slogan "Piracy is theft" was used beginning in the 1980s, and is still being used. In copyright law, infringement does not refer to theft of physical objects that take away the owner's possession, but an instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization. Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft. For instance, the United States Supreme Court held in '' Dowling v. United States'' (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property. Instead,

interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: ' ..an infringer of the copyright.'

The court said that in the case of copyright infringement, the province guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law – certain exclusive rights – is invaded, but no control, physical or otherwise, is taken over the copyright, nor is the copyright holder wholly deprived of using the copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights held.

"Freebooting"

The term "freebooting" has been used to describe the unauthorized copying of online media, particularly videos, onto websites such as Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. The word itself had already been in use since the 16th century, referring to pirates, and meant "looting" or "plundering". This form of the word – a portmanteau

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