Copyright infringement of audio-visual works on:
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Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of
The terms ''piracy'' and ''theft'' are often associated with copyright infringement. The original meaning of ''
The term "piracy" has been used to refer to the unauthorized copying, distribution and selling of works in copyright. The first use of the word 'pirate' itself to describe unauthorized publishing of books dates back to at least 1736, as attested to in
Copyright holders frequently refer to copyright infringement as
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works
Works may refer to:
People
* Caddy Works (1896–1982), American college sports coach
* Samuel Works (c. 1781–1868), New York politician
Albums
* '' ''Works'' (Pink Floyd album)'', a Pink Floyd album from 1983
* ''Works'', a Gary Burton album ...
protected by copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive right
In Anglo-Saxon law, an exclusive right, or exclusivity, is a de facto, non-tangible prerogative existing in law (that is, the power or, in a wider sense, right) to perform an action or acquire a benefit and to permit or deny others the right t ...
s 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
Notice and take down is a process operated by online hosts in response to court orders or allegations that content is illegal. Content is removed by the host following notice. Notice and take down is widely operated in relation to copyright infri ...
process, or litigation in civil court
Civil law may refer to:
* Civil law (common law), the part of law that concerns private citizens and legal persons
* Civil law (legal system), or continental law, a legal system originating in continental Europe and based on Roman law
** Private la ...
. Egregious or large-scale commercial infringement, especially when it involves counterfeiting, is sometimes prosecuted via the criminal justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...
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
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
or otherwise contentious.
Terminology
The terms ''piracy'' and ''theft'' are often associated with copyright infringement. The original meaning of ''piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...
'' is "robbery or illegal violence at sea", but the term has been in use for centuries as a synonym for acts of copyright infringement. ''Theft
Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for som ...
'', meanwhile, emphasizes the potential commercial harm of infringement to copyright holders. However, copyright is a type of intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
, an area of law distinct from that which covers robbery or theft, offenses related only to tangible property
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
. 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 first use of the word 'pirate' itself to describe unauthorized publishing of books dates back to at least 1736, as attested to in Nathan Bailey
Nathan Bailey (died 27 June 1742), was an English philologist and lexicographer. He was the author of several dictionaries, including his '' Universal Etymological Dictionary'', which appeared in some 30 editions between 1721 and 1802. Bailey's ...
's 1736 dictionary '' An Universal Etymological English Dictionary'':'One who lives by pillage and robbing on the sea. Also a plagiary'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
The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (until 1937 the Worshipful Company of Stationers), usually known as the Stationers' Company, is one of the livery companies of the City of London. The Stationers' Company was formed in ...
of London in 1557, received a royal charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but s ...
giving the company a monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...
on publication and tasking it with enforcing the charter. Article 61 of the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international legal agreement between all the member nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It establishes minimum standards for the regulation by nat ...
(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
Peer-to-peer file sharing is the distribution and sharing of digital media using peer-to-peer (P2P) networking technology. P2P file sharing allows users to access media files such as books, music, movies, and games using a P2P software program th ...
networks, as "piracy".
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...
and the GNU Project
The GNU Project () is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaborat ...
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
Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for som ...
, "although such misuse has been rejected by legislatures and courts". The slogan "Piracy is theft
"Piracy is theft" was a slogan used by UK non-profit organization FAST (Federation Against Software Theft). It was first used in the 1980s and has since then been used by other similar organisations such as MPAA. It has also been used as a state ...
" 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
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
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,The court said that in the case of copyright infringement, the province guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law – certainconversion Conversion or convert may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman'' * "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series * "The 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.'
exclusive right
In Anglo-Saxon law, an exclusive right, or exclusivity, is a de facto, non-tangible prerogative existing in law (that is, the power or, in a wider sense, right) to perform an action or acquire a benefit and to permit or deny others the right t ...
s – 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 asFacebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
, YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
or Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
. 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
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsfreeloading" and " bootlegging" – was suggested by
Most countries extend copyright protections to authors of works. In countries with copyright legislation, enforcement of copyright is generally the responsibility of the copyright holder. However, in several jurisdictions there are also criminal penalties for copyright infringement. According to the
Rethinking the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement's Criminal Copyright Enforcement Measures
The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 102(1):67–117 '' United States v. LaMacchia'' 871 F.Supp. 535 (1994) was a case decided by the
These types of intermediaries do not host or transmit infringing content, themselves, but may be regarded in some courts as encouraging, enabling or facilitating infringement by users. These intermediaries may include the author, publishers and marketers of
Article 10
"Thanks for letting us pirate"
''
YouTuber
A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006.
Influence
Influe ...
and podcaster Brady Haran
Brady John Haran (born 18 June 1976) is an Australian-British independent filmmaker and video journalist who produces educational videos and documentary films for his YouTube channels, the most notable being ''Periodic Videos'' and '' Numbe ...
in the podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
'' Hello Internet''. Haran advocated the term in an attempt to find a phrase more emotive than "copyright infringement", yet more appropriate than "theft".
Motivation
Some of the motives for engaging in copyright infringement are the following: * Pricing unwillingness or inability to pay the price requested by the legitimate sellers * Testing and evaluation try before paying for what may be bad value * Unavailability no legitimate sellers providing the product in the language or country of the end-user: not yet launched there, already withdrawn from sales, never to be sold there, geographical restrictions ononline distribution
Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and other so ...
and international shipping
* Usefulness the legitimate product comes with various means (DRM
DRM may refer to:
Government, military and politics
* Defense reform movement, U.S. campaign inspired by Col. John Boyd
* Democratic Republic of Madagascar, a former socialist state (1975–1992) on Madagascar
* Direction du renseignement milita ...
, region lock, DVD region code, Blu-ray region code) of restricting legitimate use (backups, usage on devices of different vendors, offline usage) or comes with non-skippable advertisements and anti-piracy disclaimers, which are removed in the unauthorized product, making it more desirable for the end-user
* Shopping experience no legitimate sellers providing the product with the required quality through online distribution
Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and other so ...
and through a shopping system with the required level of user-friendliness
* Anonymity download
In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote ...
ing works does not require identification whereas downloads directly from the website of the copyright owner often require a valid email address and/or other credentials
* Freedom of information opposition to copyright law in general
Sometimes only partial compliance with license agreements is the cause. For example, in 2013, the US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
settled a lawsuit with Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
-based company Apptricity which makes software that allows the army to track their soldiers in real time. In 2004, the US Army paid the company a total of $4.5 million for a license of 500 users while allegedly installing the software for more than 9000 users; the case was settled for US$50 million. Major anti-piracy organizations, like the BSA, conduct software licensing audits regularly to ensure full compliance.
Cara Cusumano, director of the Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. Tribeca was f ...
, stated in April 2014: "Piracy is less about people not wanting to pay and more about just wanting the immediacypeople saying, 'I want to watch Spiderman right now' and downloading it". The statement occurred during the third year that the festival used the Internet to present its content, while it was the first year that it featured a showcase of content producers who work exclusively online. Cusumano further explained that downloading behavior is not merely conducted by people who merely want to obtain content for free:
I think that if companies were willing to put that material out there, moving forward, consumers will follow. It's just that onsumerswant to consume films online and they're ready to consume films that way and we're not necessarily offering them in that way. So it's the distribution models that need to catch up. People will pay for the content.In response to Cusumano's perspective,
Screen Producers Australia
Screen Producers Australia (SPA), formerly the Screen Producers' Association of Australia (SPAA) and earlier names, is a national organisation representing film production businesses, emerging producers, service providers and screen industry supp ...
executive director Matt Deaner clarified the motivation of the film industry: "Distributors are usually wanting to encourage cinema-going as part of this process f monetizing through returnsand restrict the immediate access to online so as to encourage the maximum number of people to go to the cinema." Deaner further explained the matter in terms of the Australian film industry, stating: "there are currently restrictions on quantities of tax support that a film can receive unless the film has a traditional cinema release."
In a study published in the ''Journal of Behavioural and Experimental Economics'', and reported on in early May 2014, researchers from the University of Portsmouth in the UK discussed findings from examining the illegal downloading behavior of 6,000 Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
people, aged seven to 84. The list of reasons for downloading given by the study respondents included money saving; the ability to access material not on general release, or before it was released; and assisting artists to avoid involvement with record companies and movie studios.
In a public talk between Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
, Warren Buffett
Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net ...
, and Brent Schlender at the University of Washington in 1998, Bill Gates commented on piracy as a means to an end
In moral philosophy, instrumental and intrinsic value are the distinction between what is a ''means to an end'' and what is as an ''end in itself''. Things are deemed to have instrumental value if they help one achieve a particular end; intrinsic ...
, whereby people who use Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
software illegally will eventually pay for it, out of familiarity, as a country's economy develops and legitimate products become more affordable to businesses and consumers:
Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.
Developing world
In Media Piracy in Emerging Economies, the first independent comparative study of media piracy focused onBrazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
, South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
, Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
and Bolivia, "high prices for media goods, low incomes, and cheap digital technologies" are the chief factors that lead to the global spread of media piracy, especially in emerging markets. According to the study, even though digital piracy inflicts additional costs on the production side of media, it also offers the main access to media goods in developing countries. The strong tradeoffs that favor using digital piracy in developing economies dictate the current neglected law enforcement's toward digital piracy.
In China as of 2013, the issue of digital infringement has not merely been legal, but social – originating from the high demand for cheap and affordable goods as well as the governmental connections of the businesses which produce such goods.
Motivations due to censorship
There have been instances where a country's government bans a movie, resulting in the spread of copied videos and DVDs.Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
n-born documentary maker Ilinca Calugareanu wrote a ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' article telling the story of Irina Margareta Nistor, a narrator for state TV under Nicolae Ceauşescu Nicolae may refer to:
* Nicolae (name), a Romanian name
* ''Nicolae'' (novel), a 1997 novel
See also
*Nicolai (disambiguation) Nicolai may refer to:
*Nicolai (given name) people with the forename ''Nicolai''
*Nicolai (surname) people with the s ...
's regime. A visitor from the west gave her bootlegged copies of American movies
The cinema of the United States, consisting mainly of major film studios (also known as Hollywood) along with some independent film, has had a large effect on the global film industry since the early 20th century. The dominant style of Ame ...
, which she dubbed for secret viewings through Romania. According to the article, she dubbed more than 3,000 movies and became the country's second-most famous voice after Ceauşescu, even though no one knew her name until many years later.
Existing and proposed laws
Most countries extend copyright protections to authors of works. In countries with copyright legislation, enforcement of copyright is generally the responsibility of the copyright holder. However, in several jurisdictions there are also criminal penalties for copyright infringement. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
The United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC) is the largest lobbying group in the United States, representing over three million businesses and organizations. The group was founded in April 1912 out of local chambers of commerce at the urgin ...
's 2021 IP Index, the nations with the lowest scores for copyright protection were Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
, Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
, Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
, Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
, Brunei
Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by t ...
, Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
, Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
and Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
.
Civil law
Copyright infringement in civil law is any violation of the exclusive rights of the owner. In U.S. law, those rights include reproduction, the preparation of derivative works, distributing copies by sale or rental, and public performance or display. In the U.S., copyright infringement is sometimes confronted via lawsuits in civil court, against alleged infringers directly or against providers of services and software that support unauthorized copying. For example, major motion-picture corporation MGM Studios filed suit against P2P file-sharing services Grokster and Streamcast for their contributory role in copyright infringement. In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of MGM, holding that such services could be held liable for copyright infringement since they functioned and, indeed, willfully marketed themselves as venues for acquiring copyrighted movies. The '' MGM v. Grokster'' case did not overturn the earlier '' Sony v. Universal City Studios'' decision, but rather clouded the legal waters; future designers of software capable of being used for copyright infringement were warned. In the United States, copyright term has been extended many times over from the original term of 14 years with a single renewal allowance of 14 years, to the current term of the life of the author plus 70 years. If the work was produced under corporate authorship it may last 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is sooner. Article 50 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) requires that signatory countries enablecourt
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...
s to remedy copyright infringement with injunctions and the destruction of infringing products, and award damages. Some jurisdictions only allow actual, provable damages, and some, like the U.S., allow for large statutory damage awards intended to deter would-be infringers and allow for compensation in situations where actual damages are difficult to prove.
In some jurisdictions, copyright or the right to enforce it can be contractually assigned to a third party which did not have a role in producing the work. When this outsourced litigator appears to have no intention of taking any copyright infringement cases to trial, but rather only takes them just far enough through the legal system to identify and exact settlements from suspected infringers, critics commonly refer to the party as a "copyright troll
A copyright troll is a party (person or company) that enforces copyrights it owns for purposes of making money through strategic litigation, in a manner considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic, sometimes while without producing or licensi ...
". Such practices have had mixed results in the U.S.
Criminal law
Punishment of copyright infringement varies case-by-case across countries. Convictions may include jail time and/or severe fines for each instance of copyright infringement. In the United States, willful copyright infringement carries a maximum fine of $150,000 per instance. Article 61 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) requires that signatory countries establish criminal procedures and penalties in cases of "willful trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy on a commercial scale". Copyright holders have demanded that states provide criminal sanctions for all types of copyright infringement. The first criminal provision in U.S. copyright law was added in 1897, which established a misdemeanor penalty for "unlawful performances and representations of copyrighted dramatic and musical compositions" if the violation had been "willful and for profit". Criminal copyright infringement requires that the infringer acted "for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain" (). To establish criminal liability, the prosecutor must first show the basic elements of copyright infringement: ownership of a valid copyright, and the violation of one or more of the copyright holder's exclusive rights. The government must then establish that defendant willfully infringed or, in other words, possessed the necessary '' mens rea''. Misdemeanor infringement has a very low threshold in terms of number of copies and the value of the infringed works. The ACTA trade agreement, signed in May 2011 by the United States, Japan, and the EU, requires that its parties add criminal penalties, including incarceration and fines, for copyright and trademark infringement, and obligated the parties to actively police for infringement.Miriam Bitton (2012Rethinking the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement's Criminal Copyright Enforcement Measures
The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 102(1):67–117 '' United States v. LaMacchia'' 871 F.Supp. 535 (1994) was a case decided by the
United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (in case citations, D. Mass.) is the federal district court whose territorial jurisdiction is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. The first court session was he ...
which ruled that, under the copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
and cybercrime
A cybercrime is a crime that involves a computer or a computer network.Moore, R. (2005) "Cyber crime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime," Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing. The computer may have been used in committing th ...
laws effective at the time, committing copyright infringement for non-commercial motives could not be prosecuted under criminal copyright law. The ruling gave rise to what became known as the "LaMacchia Loophole", wherein criminal charges of fraud or copyright infringement would be dismissed under current legal standards, so long as there was no profit motive involved.
The United States No Electronic Theft Act
The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement under certain circumstances, even when there is no monetary profit or comme ...
(NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, in response to LaMacchia, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement under certain circumstances, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines Fines may refer to:
* Fines, Andalusia, Spanish municipality
* Fine (penalty)
* Fine, a dated term for a premium on a lease of land, a large sum the tenant pays to commute (lessen) the rent throughout the term
*Fines, ore or other products with a s ...
. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by 50%. The court's ruling explicitly drew attention to the shortcomings of current law that allowed people to facilitate mass copyright infringement while being immune to prosecution under the Copyright Act.
Proposed laws such as the Stop Online Piracy Act
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a controversial proposed United States congressional bill to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods. Introduced on O ...
broaden the definition of "willful infringement", and introduce felony charges for unauthorized media streaming. These bills are aimed towards defeating websites that carry or contain links to infringing content, but have raised concerns about domestic abuse and internet censorship.
Noncommercial file sharing
Legality of downloading
To an extent, copyright law in some countries permits downloading copyright-protected content for personal, noncommercial use. Examples includeCanada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
(EU) member states like Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
.
The personal copying exemption in the copyright law of EU member states stems from the Information Society Directive
The Information Society Directive (familiarly when first proposed, the Copyright Directive) is a directive of the European Union that was enacted to implement the WIPO Copyright Treaty and to harmonise aspects of copyright law across Europe, ...
of 2001, which is generally devised to allow EU members to enact laws sanctioning making copies without authorization, as long as they are for personal, noncommercial use. The Directive was not intended to legitimize file-sharing, but rather the common practice of space shifting Space shifting (or spaceshifting), also known as place shifting (or placeshifting), allows media, such as music or films, which are stored on one device, to be accessed from another place through another device. Space shifting is frequently done thr ...
copyright-protected content from a legally purchased CD (for example) to certain kinds of devices and media, provided rights holders are compensated and no copy protection measures are circumvented. Rights-holder compensation takes various forms, depending on the country, but is generally either a levy on "recording" devices and media, or a tax on the content itself. In some countries, such as Canada, the applicability of such laws to copying onto general-purpose storage devices like computer hard drives, portable media players, and phones, for which no levies are collected, has been the subject of debate and further efforts to reform copyright law.
In some countries, the personal copying exemption explicitly requires that the content being copied be obtained legitimately – i.e., from authorized sources, not file-sharing networks. In April 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) (french: Cour de justice de l'Union européenne or "''CJUE''"; Latin: Curia) is the judicial branch of the European Union (EU). Seated in the Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, Luxembour ...
ruled that "national legislation which makes no distinction between private copies made from lawful sources and those made from counterfeited or pirated sources cannot be tolerated."
Legality of uploading
Although downloading or other private copying is sometimes permitted, public distribution – by uploading or otherwise offering to share copyright-protected content – remains illegal in most, if not all countries. For example, in Canada, even though it was once legal to download any copyrighted file as long as it was for noncommercial use, it was still illegal to distribute the copyrighted files (e.g. by uploading them to aP2P network
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...
).
Relaxed penalties
Some countries, like Canada and Germany, have limited the penalties for non-commercial copyright infringement. For example, Germany has passed a bill to limit the fine for individuals accused of sharing movies and series to €800–900. Canada'sCopyright Modernization Act
''An Act to amend the Copyright Act'' (the ''Act''), also known as ''Bill C-11'' or the ''Copyright Modernization Act'', was introduced in the House of Commons of Canada on September 29, 2011 by Industry Minister Christian Paradis. It was virtua ...
claims that statutory damages for non-commercial copyright infringement are capped at C$5,000 but this only applies to copies that have been made without the breaking of any "digital lock". However, this only applies to "bootleg distribution" and not non-commercial use.
DMCA and anti-circumvention laws
Title I of the U.S.DMCA
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...
, the WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act has provisions that prevent persons from "circumvent nga technological measure that effectively controls access to a work". Thus if a distributor of copyrighted works has some kind of software, dongle or password access device installed in instances of the work, any attempt to bypass such a copy protection
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, describes measures to enforce copyright by preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media.
Copy protection is most commonly found o ...
scheme may be actionable – though the US Copyright Office is currently reviewing anticircumvention rulemaking under DMCA – anti-circumvention exemptions that have been in place under the DMCA include those in software designed to filter websites that are generally seen to be inefficient (child safety and public library website filtering software) and the circumvention of copy protection mechanisms that have malfunctioned, have caused the instance of the work to become inoperable or which are no longer supported by their manufacturers. According to ''Abby House Media Inc. v. Apple Inc.'', it is legal to point users to DRM-stripping software and inform them how to use it because of lack of evidence that DRM stripping leads to copyright infringement.
Online intermediary liability
Whether Internet intermediaries are liable for copyright infringement by their users is a subject of debate and court cases in a number of countries.Definition of intermediary
Internet intermediaries were formerly understood to be internet service providers (ISPs). However, questions of liability have also emerged in relation to other Internet infrastructure intermediaries, including Internet backbone providers, cable companies and mobile communications providers. In addition, intermediaries are now also generally understood to includeInternet portals
A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayi ...
, software and games providers, those providing virtual information such as interactive forums and comment facilities with or without a moderation system
On Internet websites that invite users to post comments, content moderation is the process of detecting contributions that are irrelevant, obscene, illegal, harmful, or insulting with regards to useful or informative contributions. The purpose of ...
, aggregators of various kinds, such as news aggregators
In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, pod ...
, universities
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
, libraries
A library is a collection of Document, materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or electronic media, digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...
and archives
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located.
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...
, web search engines, chat rooms
The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...
, web blogs, mailing lists, and any website which provides access to third party content through, for example, hyperlinks
In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference to data that the user can follow or be guided by clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text wi ...
, a crucial element of the World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...
.
Litigation and legislation concerning intermediaries
Early court cases focused on the liability ofInternet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...
s (ISPs) for hosting, transmitting or publishing user-supplied content that could be actioned under civil or criminal law, such as libel or pornography. As different content was considered in different legal systems, and in the absence of common definitions for "ISPs", "bulletin boards" or "online publishers", early law on online intermediaries' liability varied widely from country to country.
The debate has shifted away from questions about liability for specific content, including that which may infringe copyright, towards whether online intermediaries should be ''generally'' responsible for content accessible through their services or infrastructure.
The U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...
(1998) and the European E-Commerce Directive
The e-Commerce Directive, adopted in 2000, sets up an Internal Market framework for online services. Its aim is to remove obstacles to cross-border online services in the EU internal market and provide legal certainty for businesses and consumer ...
(2000) provide online intermediaries with limited statutory immunity from liability for copyright infringement. Online intermediaries hosting content that infringes copyright are not liable, so long as they do not know about it and take actions once the infringing content is brought to their attention. In U.S. law this is characterized as " safe harbor" provisions. Under European law, the governing principles for Internet Service Providers are "mere conduit", meaning that they are neutral 'pipes' with no knowledge of what they are carrying; and 'no obligation to monitor' meaning that they cannot be given a general mandate by governments to monitor content. These two principles are a barrier for certain forms of online copyright enforcement and they were the reason behind an attempt to amend the European Telecoms Package
The Telecoms Package was the review of the European Union Telecommunications Framework from 2007 – 2009. The objective of the review was to update the EU Telecoms Framework of 2002 and to create a common set of regulations for the telecoms indus ...
in 2009 to support new measures against copyright infringement.
Peer-to-peer issues
Peer-to-peer file sharing
Peer-to-peer file sharing is the distribution and sharing of digital media using peer-to-peer (P2P) networking technology. P2P file sharing allows users to access media files such as books, music, movies, and games using a P2P software program th ...
intermediaries have been denied access to safe harbor provisions in relation to copyright infringement. Legal action against such intermediaries, such as Napster, are generally brought in relation to principles of secondary liability
Secondary liability, or indirect infringement, arises when a party materially contributes to, facilitates, induces, or is otherwise responsible for directly infringing acts carried out by another party. The US has statutorily codified secondary li ...
for copyright infringement, such as contributory liability and vicarious liability
Vicarious liability is a form of a strict, secondary liability that arises under the common law doctrine of agency, '' respondeat superior'', the responsibility of the superior for the acts of their subordinate or, in a broader sense, the re ...
.
These types of intermediaries do not host or transmit infringing content, themselves, but may be regarded in some courts as encouraging, enabling or facilitating infringement by users. These intermediaries may include the author, publishers and marketers of peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...
networking software, and the websites that allow users to download such software. In the case of the BitTorrent protocol, intermediaries may include the torrent tracker
A BitTorrent tracker is a special type of server that assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol.
In peer-to-peer file sharing, a software client on an end-user PC requests a file, and portions of the requested fi ...
and any websites or search engines which facilitate access to torrent file
In the BitTorrent file distribution system, a torrent file or meta-info file is a computer file that contains metadata about files and folders to be distributed, and usually also a list of the network locations of trackers, which are compute ...
s. Torrent files do not contain copyrighted content, but they may make reference to files that do, and they may point to trackers which coordinate the sharing of those files. Some torrent indexing and search sites, such as The Pirate Bay, now encourage the use of magnet links
Magnet is a URI scheme that defines the format of magnet links, a de facto standard for identifying files ( URN) by their content, via cryptographic hash value rather than by their location.
Although magnet links can be used in a number of con ...
, instead of direct links to torrent files, creating another layer of indirection; using such links, torrent files are obtained from other peers, rather than from a particular website.
Since the late 1990s, copyright holders have taken legal actions against a number of peer-to-peer intermediaries, such as pir, Grokster
Grokster Ltd. was a privately owned software company based in Nevis, West Indies that created the Grokster peer-to-peer file-sharing client in 2001 that used the FastTrack protocol. Grokster Ltd. was rendered extinct in late 2005 by the United St ...
, eMule
eMule is a free peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. Started in May 2002 as an alternative to eDonkey2000, eMule now connects to both the eDonkey network and the Kad network. The distinguishing features of eMule are ...
, SoulSeek
Soulseek is a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing network and application. The term Soulseek might refer to (1) one of the two networks, or (2) one of the three official user client interfaces. Soulseek is used mostly to exchange music, although user ...
, BitTorrent and Limewire
LimeWire was a free peer-to-peer file sharing client for Windows, MacOS, Linux and Solaris. Created by Mark Gorton in 2000, it was most prominently a tool used for the download and distribution of pirated materials, particularly pirated mus ...
, and case law on the liability of Internet service providers (ISPs) in relation to copyright infringement has emerged primarily in relation to these cases.
Nevertheless, whether and to what degree any of these types of intermediaries have secondary liability is the subject of ongoing litigation. The decentralised structure of peer-to-peer networks, in particular, does not sit easily with existing laws on online intermediaries' liability. The BitTorrent protocol established an entirely decentralised network architecture in order to distribute large files effectively. Recent developments in peer-to-peer technology towards more complex network configurations are said to have been driven by a desire to avoid liability as intermediaries under existing laws.
Limitations
Copyright law does not grant authors and publishers absolute control over the use of their work. Only certain types of works and kinds of uses are protected; only unauthorized uses of protected works can be said to be infringing.Non-infringing uses
Article 10 of the Berne Convention mandates that national laws provide for limitations to copyright, so that copyright protection does not extend to certain kinds of uses that fall under what the treaty calls "fair practice", including but not limited to minimal quotations used in journalism and education.Berne ConventioArticle 10
fair use
Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...
or fair dealing
Fair dealing is a limitation and exception to the exclusive rights granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. Fair dealing is found in many of the common law jurisdictions of the Commonwealth of Nations.
Fair dealing is an en ...
. In common law systems, these fair practice statutes typically enshrine principles underlying many earlier judicial precedents, and are considered essential to freedom of speech.
Another example is the practice of compulsory licensing, which is where the law forbids copyright owners from denying a license for certain uses of certain kinds of works, such as compilations and live performances of music. Compulsory licensing laws generally say that for certain uses of certain works, no infringement occurs as long as a royalty, at a rate determined by law rather than private negotiation, is paid to the copyright owner or representative copyright collective. Some fair dealing laws, such as Canada's, include similar royalty requirements.
In Europe, the copyright infringement case '' Public Relations Consultants Association Ltd v Newspaper Licensing Agency Ltd'' had two prongs; one concerned whether a news aggregator
In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, ...
service infringed the copyright of the news generators; the other concerned whether the temporary web cache
A Web cache (or HTTP cache) is a system for optimizing the World Wide Web. It is implemented both client-side and server-side. The caching of multimedias and other files can result in less overall delay when browsing the Web.
Parts of the sys ...
created by the web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
of a consumer of the aggregator's service, ''also'' infringed the copyright of the news generators. The first prong was decided in favor of the news generators; in June 2014 the second prong was decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which ruled that the temporary web cache of consumers of the aggregator did not infringe the copyright of the news generators.
Non-infringing types of works
In order to qualify for protection, a work must be an expression with a degree of originality, and it must be in a fixed medium, such as written down on paper or recorded digitally., for example. The idea itself is not protected. That is, a copy of someone else's original idea is not infringing unless it copies that person's unique, tangible ''expression'' of the idea. Some of these limitations, especially regarding what qualifies as original, are embodied only in case law (judicial precedent), rather than in statutes. In the U.S., for example, copyright case law contains a substantial similarity requirement to determine whether the work was copied. Likewise, courts may require computer software to pass anAbstraction-Filtration-Comparison test
The Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison test (AFC) is a method of identifying substantial similarity for the purposes of applying copyright law. In particular, the AFC test is used to determine whether non-literal elements of a computer program have ...
(AFC Test) to determine if it is too abstract to qualify for protection, or too dissimilar to an original work to be considered infringing. Software-related case law has also clarified that the amount of R&D, effort and expense put into a work's creation does not affect copyright protection.
Evaluation of alleged copyright infringement in a court of law may be substantial; the time and costs required to apply these tests vary based on the size and complexity of the copyrighted material. Furthermore, there is no standard or universally accepted test; some courts have rejected the AFC Test, for example, in favor of narrower criteria.
Preventive measures
The BSA outlined four strategies that governments can adopt to reduce software piracy rates in its 2011 piracy study results: * "Increase public education and raise awareness about software piracy and IP rights in cooperation with industry and law enforcement." * "Modernize protections for software and other copyrighted materials to keep pace with new innovations such as cloud computing and the proliferation of networked mobile devices." * "Strengthen enforcement of IP laws with dedicated resources, including specialized enforcement units, training for law enforcement and judiciary officials, improved cross-border cooperation among law enforcement agencies, and fulfillment of obligations under the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)." * "Lead by example by using only fully licensed software, implementing software asset management (SAM) programs, and promoting the use of legal software in state-owned enterprises, and among all contractors and suppliers."Legal
Corporations and legislatures take different types of preventive measures to deter copyright infringement, with much of the focus since the early 1990s being on preventing or reducing digital methods of infringement. Strategies include education, civil and criminal legislation, and international agreements,Ram D. Gopal and G. Lawrence Sanders. "International Software Piracy: Analysis of Key Issues and Impacts". Information Systems Research 9, no. 4 (December 1998): 380–397. as well as publicizing anti-piracy litigation successes and imposing forms of digital media copy protection, such as controversialDRM
DRM may refer to:
Government, military and politics
* Defense reform movement, U.S. campaign inspired by Col. John Boyd
* Democratic Republic of Madagascar, a former socialist state (1975–1992) on Madagascar
* Direction du renseignement milita ...
technology and anti-circumvention
Anti-circumvention refers to laws which prohibit the circumvention of technological barriers for using a digital good in certain ways which the rightsholders do not wish to allow. The requirement for anti-circumvention laws was globalized in 1996 ...
laws, which limit the amount of control consumers have over the use of products and content they have purchased.
Legislatures have reduced infringement by narrowing the scope of what is considered infringing. Aside from upholding international copyright treaty obligations to provide general limitations and exceptions, nations have enacted compulsory licensing laws applying specifically to digital works and uses. For example, in the U.S., the DMCA, an implementation of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty
The World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WIPO Copyright Treaty or WCT) is an international treaty on copyright law adopted by the member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1996. It provides addi ...
, considers digital transmissions of audio recordings to be licensed as long as a designated copyright collective's royalty and reporting requirements are met. The DMCA also provides safe harbor for digital service providers whose users are suspected of copyright infringement, thus reducing the likelihood that the providers themselves will be considered directly infringing.
Some copyright owners voluntarily reduce the scope of what is considered infringement by employing relatively permissive, "open" licensing strategies: rather than privately negotiating license terms with individual users who must first seek out the copyright owner and ask for permission, the copyright owner publishes and distributes the work with a prepared license that anyone can use, as long as they adhere to certain conditions. This has the effect of reducing infringement – and the burden on courts – by simply permitting certain types of uses under terms that the copyright owner considers reasonable. Examples include free software license
A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder (usually the author) ...
s, like the GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...
(GPL), and the Creative Commons license
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...
s, which are predominantly applied to visual and literary works.
Protected distribution
To maximize revenue, pre-COVID-19film distribution
Film distribution (also known as Film exhibition or Film distribution and exhibition) is the process of making a movie available for viewing by an audience. This is normally the task of a professional film distributor, who would determine the marke ...
typically began with movie theaters
A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall (Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...
(theatrical window), on average approximately 16 and a half weeks,
before the release to Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
and DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
(entering its video window). During the theatrical window, digital versions of films are often transported in data storage devices by couriers rather than by data transmission
Data transmission and data reception or, more broadly, data communication or digital communications is the transfer and reception of data in the form of a digital bitstream or a digitized analog signal transmitted over a point-to-point o ...
. The data can be encrypted
In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can deci ...
, with the key being made to work only at specific times in order to prevent leakage between screens.
Watermarking
Coded Anti-Piracy
Coded anti-piracy (CAP) is an anti-copyright infringement technology which marks each film print of a motion picture with a distinguishing pattern of dots, used as a forensic identifier to identify the source of illegal copies.
They are not to b ...
marks can be added to films to identify the source of illegal copies and shut them down. In 2006 a notable example of using Coded Anti-Piracy
Coded anti-piracy (CAP) is an anti-copyright infringement technology which marks each film print of a motion picture with a distinguishing pattern of dots, used as a forensic identifier to identify the source of illegal copies.
They are not to b ...
marks resulted in a man being arrested for uploading a screener's copy of the movie ''Flushed Away
''Flushed Away'' is a 2006 computer-animated adventure comedy film directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell, produced by Cecil Kramer, David Sproxton, and Peter Lord, and written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan a ...
''. Some photocopier
A photocopier (also called copier or copy machine, and formerly Xerox machine, the generic trademark) is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply. Most modern photocopiers ...
s use Machine Identification Code dots for similar purposes. The EURion constellation
The EURion constellation (also known as Omron rings or doughnuts) is a pattern of symbols incorporated into a number of secure documents such as banknotes and ownership title certificates designs worldwide since about 1996. It is added to help ...
on banknotes is used to prevent copying to make counterfeit currency.
Economic impact of copyright infringement
Organizations disagree on the scope and magnitude of copyright infringement's free rider economic effects and public support for the copyright regime. TheEuropean Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
funded a study to analyze "the extent to which unauthorised online consumption of copyrighted materials (music, audiovisual, books and video games) displaces sales of online and offline legal content", across Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
, Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
and Sweden; the public funding behind the study provided a necessary basis for its neutrality. 30,000 users, including minors between 14 and 17 years, were surveyed among September and October 2014. While a negative impact was found for the film industry, videogame sales were positively affected by illegal consumption, possibly due to "the industry being successful in converting illegal users to paying users" and employing player-oriented strategies (for example, by providing additional bonus levels or items in the gameplay for a fee); finally, no evidence was found for any claims of sales displacement in the other market sectors. According to the European Digital Rights
European Digital Rights (EDRi) is an international advocacy group headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. EDRi is a network collective of non-profit organizations (NGO), experts, advocates and academics working to defend and advance digital rights ...
association, the study may have been censored: specifically, as of 2018, the European Commission has not published the results, except in the part where the film industry was found to be adversely affected by illegal content consumption. Access to the study was requested and obtained by Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...
Felix Reda
Felix Reda (formerly Julia Reda; born 30 November 1986) is a German researcher and politician who was Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany. He was a member of the Pirate Party Germany until 27 March 2019, part of The Greens–E ...
.
In relation to computer software, the Business Software Alliance
The Software Alliance, also known as BSA, is a trade group established by Microsoft in 1988 to represent commercial software makers. It is a member of the International Intellectual Property Alliance. Its principal activity is trying to stop cop ...
(BSA) claimed in its 2011 piracy study: "Public opinion continues to support intellectual property (IP) rights: Seven PC users in 10 support paying innovators to promote more technological advances."
Following consultation with experts on copyright infringement, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) clarified in 2010 that "estimating the economic impact of IP ntellectual propertyinfringements is extremely difficult, and assumptions must be used due to the absence of data", while "it is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the net effect of counterfeiting and piracy on the economy as a whole."
The U.S. GAO's 2010 findings regarding the great difficulty of accurately gauging the economic impact of copyright infringement was reinforced within the same report by the body's research into three commonly cited estimates that had previously been provided to U.S. agencies. The GAO report explained that the sources – a Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI) estimate, a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) press release and a Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association estimate – "cannot be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology."
Deaner explained the importance of rewarding the "investment risk" taken by motion picture studios in 2014:
Usually movies are hot because a distributor has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars promoting the product in print and TV and other forms of advertising. The major Hollywood studios spend millions on this process with marketing costs rivaling the costs of production. They are attempting then to monetise through returns that can justify the investment in both the costs of promotion and production.
Motion picture industry estimates
In 2008, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) reported that its six major member companies lost US$6.1 billion to piracy. A 2009 ''Los Angeles Daily News'' article then cited a loss figure of "roughly $20 billion a year" for Hollywood studios. According to a 2013 article in ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', industry estimates in the United States range between $6.1B to $18.5B per year.
In an early May 2014 article in ''The Guardian'', an annual loss figure of US$20.5 billion was cited for the movie industry. The article's basis is the results of a University of Portsmouth study that only involved Finnish participants, aged between seven and 84. The researchers, who worked with 6,000 participants, stated: "Movie pirates are also more likely to cut down their piracy if they feel they are harming the industry compared with people who illegally download music".
However, a study conducted on data from sixteen countries between 2005 and 2013, many of which had enacted anti-piracy measures to increase box office revenues of movies, found no significant increases in any markets attributable to policy interventions, which calls into doubt the claimed negative economic effects of digital piracy on the film industry.
Software industry estimates
Psion Software claimed in 1983 that software piracy cost it £2.9 million a year, 30% of its revenue. Will Wright said that '' Raid on Bungeling Bay'' sold 20,000 copies for the Commodore 64 in the US, but 800,000 cartridges for theNintendo Famicom
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...
with a comparable installed base in Japan, "because it's a cartridge system othere's virtually no piracy".
According to a 2007 BSA and International Data Corporation
International Data Group (IDG, Inc.) is a market intelligence and demand generation company focused on the technology industry. IDG, Inc.’s mission is centered around supporting the technology industry through research, data, marketing technol ...
(IDC) study, the five countries with the highest rates of software piracy were: 1. Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...
(93%); 2. Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
(92%); 3. Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...
(92%); 4. Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistr ...
(92%); and 5. Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...
(91%). According to the study's results, the five countries with the lowest piracy rates were: 1. the U.S. (20%); 2. Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
(21%); 3. New Zealand (22%); 4. Japan (23%); and 5. Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
(25%). The 2007 report showed that the Asia-Pacific region was associated with the highest amount of loss, in terms of U.S. dollars, with $14,090,000, followed by the European Union, with a loss of $12,383,000; the lowest amount of U.S. dollars was lost in the Middle East/Africa region, where $2,446,000 was documented.
In its 2011 report, conducted in partnership with IDC and Ipsos Public Affairs, the BSA stated: "Over half of the world's personal computer users – 57 percent – admit to pirating software." The ninth annual "BSA Global Software Piracy Study" claims that the "commercial value of this shadow market of pirated software" was worth US$63.4 billion in 2011, with the highest commercial value of pirated PC software existent in the U.S. during that time period (US$9,773,000). According to the 2011 study, Zimbabwe was the nation with the highest piracy rate, at 92%, while the lowest piracy rate was present in the U.S., at 19%.
The GAO noted in 2010 that the BSA's research up until that year defined "piracy as the difference between total installed software and legitimate software sold, and its scope involved only packaged physical software."
Music industry estimates
In 2007, the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) reported thatmusic piracy
Music piracy is the copying and distributing of recordings of a piece of music for which the rights owners (composer, recording artist, or copyright-holding record company) did not give consent. In the contemporary legal environment, it is a form ...
took $12.5 billion from the U.S. economy. According to the study, musicians and those involved in the recording industry are not the only ones who experience losses attributed to music piracy. Retailers have lost over a billion dollars, while piracy has resulted in 46,000 fewer production-level jobs and almost 25,000 retail jobs. The U.S. government was also reported to suffer from music piracy, losing $422 million in tax revenue.
A 2007 study in the '' Journal of Political Economy'' found that the effect of music downloads on legal music sales was "statistically indistinguishable from zero".
A report from 2013, released by the European Commission Joint Research Centre
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission's science and knowledge service which employs scientists to carry out research in order to provide independent scientific advice and support to European Union (EU) policy. The JRC is ...
suggests that illegal music downloads have almost no effect on the number of legal music downloads. The study analyzed the behavior of 16,000 European music consumers and found that although music piracy negatively affects offline music sales, illegal music downloads had a positive effect on legal music purchases. Without illegal downloading, legal purchases were about two percent lower.
The study has received criticism, particularly from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which believes the study is flawed and misleading. One argument against the research is that many music consumers only download music illegally. The IFPI also points out that music piracy affects not only online music sales but also multiple facets of the music industry, which is not addressed in the study.
Media industry estimates
In a March 2019 article, ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reported that the Qatar-based beIN Media Group
beIN Media Group ( /ˈbiːɪn/; Arabic: مجموعة بي إن الإعلامية, ''Majmū‘at Bī’in al-I‘lāmiyyah'') is a state-owned global sport and entertainment network headquartered in Doha, Qatar. beIN distributes entertainme ...
suffered "billions of dollars" of losses, following the unilateral cancellation of an exclusive contract it shared with the Asian Football Confederation
The Asian Football Confederation is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in some countries/territories in Asia and Oceania. It has 47 member countries most of which are located in Asia. Australia, formerly i ...
(AFC) for the past 10 years. The decision by the AFC to invalidate its license for broadcasting rights to air games in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
came after the kingdom was accused of leading a piracy operation through its television broadcaster, beoutQ
beoutQ was a pirate pay television broadcaster that operated in Saudi Arabia between August 2017 and August 2019. The service consisted of ten satellite television channels that carried rebranded feeds of programming from Qatari broadcaster ...
, misappropriating sports content owned by beIN Sports
beIN Sports ( ) is a global network of sports channels owned and operated by the Qatari media group beIN. It has played a major role in the increased commercialization of Qatari sports. Its chairman is Nasser Al-Khelaifi, and its CEO is Yousef O ...
since 2017, worth billions of dollars.
In January 2020, the European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
released a report on protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in third countries. The report named as many as 13 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, China, Ecuador, India, Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, and Saudi Arabia, the last being included for the first time. The report said piracy is "causing considerable harm to EU businesses" and high economic losses have occurred in Argentina, China, Ecuador and India. It also informed Saudi Arabia has not "taken sufficient steps to stop the infringement" caused via BeoutQ
beoutQ was a pirate pay television broadcaster that operated in Saudi Arabia between August 2017 and August 2019. The service consisted of ten satellite television channels that carried rebranded feeds of programming from Qatari broadcaster ...
, like other countries have, to minimize the extent of financial and economic loss.
Criticism of industry estimates
Some claims made by industry representatives have been criticized as overestimating the monetary loss caused by copyright infringement. In one example, the RIAA claimed damages againstLimeWire
LimeWire was a free peer-to-peer file sharing client for Windows, MacOS, Linux and Solaris. Created by Mark Gorton in 2000, it was most prominently a tool used for the download and distribution of pirated materials, particularly pirated mus ...
totaling $75 trillion – more than the global GDP – with the judge overseeing the case ruling that such claims were "absurd". The $75 trillion figure had been obtained by counting each song downloaded as an infringement of copyright. After the conclusion of the case, LimeWire agreed to pay $105 million to RIAA.
In another decision, US District Court Judge James P. Jones found that the "RIAA's request problematically assumes that every illegal download resulted in a lost sale", indicating profit/loss estimates were likely extremely off.
Critics of industry estimates argue that those who use peer-to-peer sharing services, or practice "piracy" are actually more likely to pay for music. A Jupiter Research
Mecklermedia (formerly Internet.com LLC, Jupitermedia Inc., Mediabistro Inc. and WebMediaBrands Corporation) was a U.S.-based corporation. The original WebMediaBrands was established in 1994, and headquartered in New York. Founded by Alan M. ...
study in 2000 found that "Napster users were 45 percent more likely to have increased their music purchasing habits than online music fans who don't use the software were." This indicated that users of peer-to-peer sharing did not hurt the profits of the music industry, but in fact may have increased it.
Professor Aram Sinnreich, in his book ''The Piracy Crusade'', states that the connection between declining music sales and the creation of peer to peer file sharing sites such as Napster is tenuous, based on correlation rather than causation. He argues that the industry at the time was undergoing artificial expansion, what he describes as a perfect bubble'—a confluence of economic, political, and technological forces that drove the aggregate value of music sales to unprecedented heights at the end of the twentieth century".
Sinnreich cites multiple causes for the economic bubble, including the CD format replacement cycle; the shift from music specialty stores to wholesale suppliers of music and 'minimum advertised pricing'; and the economic expansion of 1991–2001. He believes that with the introduction of new digital technologies, the bubble burst, and the industry suffered as a result.
Economic impact of infringement in emerging markets
The 2011 Business Software Alliance Piracy Study Standard estimated the total commercial value of illegally copied software to be at $59 billion in 2010, with emerging markets accounting for $31.9 billion, over half of the total. Furthermore, mature markets for the first time received fewer PC shipments than emerging economies in 2010. In addition with software infringement rates of 68 percent comparing to 24 percent of mature markets, emerging markets thus possessed the majority of the global increase in the commercial value of counterfeit software. China continued to have the highest commercial value of such software at $8.9 billion among developing countries and second in the world behind the US at $9.7 billion in 2011. In 2011, the Business Software Alliance announced that 83 percent of software deployed on PCs in Africa had been pirated (excluding South Africa). Some countries distinguish corporate piracy from private use, which is tolerated as a welfare service. This is the leading reason developing countries refuse to accept or respect copyright laws.Traian Băsescu
Traian Băsescu (; born 4 November 1951) is a conservative Romanian politician who served as President of Romania from 2004 to 2014. Prior to his presidency, Băsescu served as Romanian Minister of Transport on multiple occasions between 1991 ...
, the president of Romania, stated that "piracy helped the young generation discover computers. It set off the development of the IT industry in Romania."Nathan Davis (5 February 2007)"Thanks for letting us pirate"
''
APC Magazine
''APC'' (formerly known as Australian Personal Computer) is a computer magazine in Australia. It is published monthly and comes with a cover-mounted DVD of software. It is published by Future Australia.
The tagline on the front of the magaz ...
''.
Pro-free-culture organizations
*Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft (" ...
(FSF)
* Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the steward of the Open Source Definition, the set of rules that define open source software. It is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation,_with_501(c)(3).html" ;"title="110. - 6910./ref> is a type o ...
(OSI)
* Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
* Creative Commons (CC)
* Demand Progress
* Fight for the Future
Fight for the Future (often abbreviated fightfortheftr or FFTF) is a nonprofit advocacy group in the area of digital rights founded in 2011. The group aims to
promote causes related to copyright legislation, as well as online privacy and censor ...
* Pirate Party
* Plan S
Plan S is an initiative for open-access science publishing launched in 2018 by "cOAlition S", a consortium of national research agencies and funders from twelve European countries. The plan requires scientists and researchers who benefit from s ...
, by major funders of scientific research
Anti-copyright-infringement organizations
*Business Software Alliance
The Software Alliance, also known as BSA, is a trade group established by Microsoft in 1988 to represent commercial software makers. It is a member of the International Intellectual Property Alliance. Its principal activity is trying to stop cop ...
(BSA)
* Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft The Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft (CAAST) is a Canadian trade group affiliated with the Software Alliance (formerly known as the Business Software Alliance).
(CAAST)
* Entertainment Software Association
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is the trade association of the video game industry in the United States. It was formed in April 1994 as the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) and renamed on July 21, 2003. It is based in ...
(ESA)
* Federation Against Copyright Theft
The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) is an organisation established in 1983 to protect and represent the interests of its members' intellectual property (IP). FACT also investigates fraud and cybercrime, and provides global due diligenc ...
(FACT)
* Federation Against Software Theft (FAST)
* International Intellectual Property Alliance
The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), formed in 1984, is a private sector coalition of seven trade associations representing U.S. companies that produce copyright-protected material, including computer software, films, televisio ...
(IIPA)
* Copyright Alliance
The Copyright Alliance is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(4) organization representing artistic creators across a broad range of copyright disciplines.
The Copyright Alliance's institutional members include more than sixty trade organizations, a ...
See also
*Abandonware
Abandonware is a product, typically software, ignored by its owner and manufacturer, and for which no official support is available.
Within an intellectual rights contextual background, abandonware is a software (or hardware) sub-case of the ...
* '' In re Aimster Copyright Litigation''
*
* Australian copyright law
The copyright law of Australia defines the legally enforceable rights of creators of creative and artistic works under Australian law. The scope of copyright in Australia is defined in the ''Copyright Act 1968'' (as amended), which applies the ...
* Cable television piracy
Cable television piracy is the act of obtaining unauthorized access to cable television services. It is a form of copyright infringement and a federal crime. Reception of cable television without authorization by a cable operator is forbidden by ...
* Center for Copyright Information
The Center for Copyright Information (CCI) is an American organization focused on advocacy and initiatives in support of copyright law. The CCI aims to educate the public about copyright law; coordinates with copyright owners and Internet service ...
* Comparison of anti-plagiarism software
* ''Computer Associates Int. Inc. v. Altai Inc.
''Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai, Inc.'', 982 F.2d 693 (2d Cir. 1992)', 982 F.2d 693, (2d Cir. 1992). is a decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that addressed to what extent non-literal element ...
''
* Copyfraud
A copyfraud is a false copyright claim by an individual or institution with respect to content that is in the public domain. Such claims are wrongful, at least under US and Australian copyright law, because material that is not copyrighted is f ...
* Copyleft
Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, ''freedoms'' refers to the use of the work for any purpose ...
* Copyright aspects of downloading and streaming
In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote ...
* Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988c 48, also known as the CDPA, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that received Royal Assent on 15 November 1988. It reformulates almost completely the statutory basis of copyright law ( ...
* Copyrighted content on file sharing networks
* Copyright Remedy Clarification Act
* Criminal remedies for copyright infringement
* '' Elektra Records Co. v. Gem Electronic Distributors, Inc.''
* Fair Use
Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...
* FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
* Federation Against Copyright Theft
The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) is an organisation established in 1983 to protect and represent the interests of its members' intellectual property (IP). FACT also investigates fraud and cybercrime, and provides global due diligenc ...
(FACT)
* Intellectual property in China
Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have been acknowledged and protected in China since the 1980s. China has acceded to the major international conventions on protection of rights to intellectual property. Domestically, protection of intelle ...
* Internet Privacy Act
* '' Jacobsen v. Katzer''
* Legal aspects of copyright infringement
* Missionary Church of Kopimism
The Missionary Church of Kopimism (in Swedish ''Missionerande Kopimistsamfundet''), is a congregation of file sharers who believe that copying information is a sacred virtue and was founded by Isak Gerson, a 19-year-old philosophy student, and G ...
* Online piracy
Online piracy or software piracy is the practice of downloading and distributing copyrighted works digitally without permission, such as music or software. The principle behind piracy has predated the creation of the Internet, but its online popul ...
* Open Letter to Hobbyists
Open or OPEN may refer to:
Music
* Open (band), Australian pop/rock band
* The Open (band), English indie rock band
* ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969
* ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999
* ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001
* ''Open'' ( ...
* Pirated movie release types
Pirated movie release types are the different types of pirated movies and television series that end up on the Internet. They vary wildly in rarity and quality due to the different sources and methods used for acquiring the video content, in addi ...
* Plagiarism
* ''Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Frena
''Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Frena'', 839 F.Supp. 1552 (1993) was a copyright infringement case decided by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, holding that the unauthorized online distribution of copied photogra ...
''
* Product activation
Product activation is a license validation procedure required by some proprietary software programs. Product activation prevents unlimited free use of copied or replicated software. Unactivated software refuses to fully function until it ''determin ...
* Public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...
* Radio music ripping
* Software copyright Software copyright is the application of copyright in law to machine-readable software. While many of the legal principles and policy debates concerning software copyright have close parallels in other domains of copyright law, there are a number o ...
* Software cracking
Software cracking (known as "breaking" mostly in the 1980s) is the modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software (software cracker), especially copy protection featur ...
* Trade group efforts against file sharing
Arts and media industry trade groups, such as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), strongly oppose and attempt to prevent copyright infringement through file sharing. T ...
* Trans-Pacific Partnership
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), or Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, was a highly contested proposed trade agreement between 12 Pacific Rim economies, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Sin ...
* Video copy detection Video copy detection is the process of detecting illegally copied videos by analyzing them and comparing them to original content.
The goal of this process is to protect a video creator's intellectual property.
History
Indyk et al. produced a ...
* Video game piracy
* Warez
Warez is a common computing and broader cultural term referring to pirated software (i.e. illegally copied, often after deactivation of anti-piracy measures) that is distributed via the Internet. Warez is used most commonly as a noun, a plural ...
* Windows Genuine Advantage
Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is an anti- infringement system created by Microsoft that enforces online validation of the licensing of several Microsoft Windows operating systems when accessing several services, such as Windows Update, and dow ...
* World Anti-Piracy Observatory (WAPO)
References
Further reading
* * * * * * *External links
* {{Copyright law by country Infringement Organized crime Organized crime activity Tort law * File sharing