Hager 1 Wesley Hager Emilia Grant ENGL - 1102 094 30 April 2014 Into the Depths of Piracy There

e has been a rise in interest over digital piracy in recent years. Digital piracy is the act of copying things from the internet or other electronic sources. Digital piracy is quite common however, the effects it has on society are still uncertain. Recently colleges have been a prime location for offenders. Mark Cenite a writer of a study of digital piracy done in Singapore brings to light the motivation behind these acts of piracy. The information that Cenite has suggested in his study shows different influences connecting college students' lifestyles, digital piracy, and their impact they have on different online industries. In this article, I explore the impact of digital piracy and copyright infringement on content shared online. This paper describes several different articles and studies conducted between 2003 and 2012. In collaboration with examining the motivations behind the culprits and the current federal court verdicts presiding over shared copyrighted content, I discover the impact of piracy on our society. The organization of this paper looks to introduce digital piracy, while making use of legislature and social media use of piracy. Piracy, also known as copyright infringement, "occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner" (U.S. Copyright Office). This definition

Hager 2 provided by the United States Copyright Office will be the base from which this inquiry is established. The acts of copyright infringement occur in different forms such as: providing access to content, sharing others works, and torrents, which is used for file sharing in peer-to-peer networks. Peer-to-peer networks are the technical name for torrenting. Torrenting comes from the file extension that is used with a small program that allows users to connect to others in order to copy and share files. Torrenting is typically linked to the piracy of software, games and entertainment content. This inquiry will be focused around these types with lawmakers, social media and colleges. The internet is massive, connecting users and the world together with a few simple clicks. Websites like YouTube (owned by Google) have large followings, uploading content all the time. A general search on YouTube and you will yield all sorts of movies, television shows, and music that are copyrighted and protected. I found the new full album by "A Day to Remember" in its entirety on YouTube. The album was "Common Courtesy" and was found by just searching "ADTR Common Courtesy". There is software that you can download, that allows you to copy any audio source that is present on YouTube. YouTube has so much content that it is very hard for them to monitor everything and need a better way of shifting through all of its content. Since it is so hard to monitor all the content that is uploaded, YouTube has come under scrutiny from major record labels, movie studios, and television networks. These media giants have a huge potential for copyright infringement claims against the user-generated content they host. In recent news, "a federal judge rule in favor of Google in a $1 billion copyright lawsuit filed by Viacom over videos posted on YouTube". Current practices stated with the federal Digital Millennial Copyright Act are to remove copyright content

Hager 3 when such claims are summated. The major questions these companies are after comes from the issue under what conditions do the service providers destroy their "safe harbor protection under the copyright act"(Swift). At the time, Google was looking to purchase YouTube. There was an e-mail passing around questioning changing policies for their benefit even if it would result in sharing copyrighted content. This comes back to the ethics and liability behind hosting copyrighted content. The official ruling established "that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online"(Swift). This not only provided the grounds to protect the hosts like YouTube but the other "billions of people around the world who use the Web to communicate and share experiences with each other."(Swift). Social media is the bread and butter of the communications online. It also has the ability to connect families and friends, share life experiences, and spread copyrighted content. Sharing "links and content via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social media conduits" has made copyright infringement easier than ever before. This increase in risk has dragged social media into the line of fire, for example when "Facebook blocked torrents from The Pirate Bay" which was the go to site for all things illegal to download (Parr). The Pirate Bay hosts everything; you can find new movies, old classics, and television shows. These videos affect box offices results for feature films. Every year before the Oscars when screeners get sent out to the critics for award nominations, many of the top films end up on the Pirates Bay and downloaded all over the world. This is a major reason for why it cost so much to go see a movie in the theaters. Major studios spend hundreds of millions of dollars making top movies and

Hager 4 they need to meet their own reward as well. Some studios even release movies in foreign countries before the United States so that they can cut on early box office results being tainted in the U.S. The Pirate Bay also hosts a wide range of books and comics. This makes it more accessible for people who have IPads or Kindles to acquire books or comics for free and do not have go through stores to purchase them. This harms book and comic sales and leads to price increases for the consumers that actually go out and buy hard copies or digital content. Facebooks decision to block torrents reduced its shareability. Social media can fight the piracy impact by allowing its users access to the original content. Music sites like Last.fm and Pandora use the freemium model that allows users to listen freely while ads supplement the costs as well as the premium, which removes ads. Even though there are freemiums out there to listen freely whenever you like, you can still download ad blockers that cut out the reasoning for even needing to purchase the premium monthly membership. Video site like Hulu use such strategies that allows them to "draw around 25 million visitors a month to watch full-length TV shows and movies" With that kind of success, it would be difficult to say that social media is the problem, "as Hulu shows, it's also a huge opportunity"(Parr). This helps from keeping online users from going and finding sites that stream the same content for free. Other premium sites that online users can visit include Netflix and Amazon Instant Video. They add new content each week, thus keeping their product fresh and making it to a supplemental reason for why users would stay. It is still uncertain where social media would be without its ability to share freely all types of content. While there is an importance to protect copyrighted content, the

Hager 5 more restriction placed on what can and cannot be posted online can inhibit peoples exposure to new things and inspires creativity (Josh). All the providers that host content for their users have a role in the future of the internet. In the lawsuit Viacom versus YouTube the huge issue over who takes the responsibility to shift through the content and making the decisions about copyright infringement was kept out of the hands of the hosts. They simply had to respond to claims about the material. The impact "could be a terrifying and unmanageable potential liability" (Cenite) if sites were forced to monitor the content that they stored. Currently one hundred hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute (Statistics). Now imagine that you are YouTube and you must pick though all of that video for any copyrighted content. Social media is the place of an infinite flow of shared content. Can social media truly survive without piracy? Based on the fact that only a few companies have managed to make a profit off sharing content through social media without resorting to piracy it begs the question that if only a few are doing it then how much is pirated(Parr)? I believe that social media cannot survive without piracy. Social media is all about sharing the things the people like, hate, care about, and anything else they want others to see. Content shared is pirated unless it was completely original. This can often times be seen with music remixes where the original work is copied and altered to give a different sound while maintaining some of its original form. I often think of it as someone holding something out in front of my face. Do I reach out and take it (pirate the content) or do I just enjoy it without taking it for myself? Piracy in the world of file sharing presents its own ethical obligations in the community. The study presented "More Than Just Free Content" by Mark Cenite

Hager 6 focused mainly in Singapore, remains relevant under the United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement. This means that both countries are committed to copyright protections and the Singapore follows closely to the copyright laws in the United States. In the world of peer-to-peer networks, people download and upload files for a wide range of reasons. Some people download as a way of sampling to test out the content before they purchase. Others engage in peer-to-peer without any intent of every buying. As Mark Cenite mentions there are also time factors, which bring the enjoyment to content while there is still an interest. Just like any community, there is a sense of obligation. In peer-to-peer networks, the obligation is giving back to the community through "seeding", the term given to people who upload the file. While it is not mandatory, the people who download feel that it's "a way of repaying others for sharing files"(Cenite). I have often heard from friends who have used these networks that they tend to share at least as much as they have received if not more than. There is risk when attempting to pirate content online. People who only download on the occasion and not multiple movies a day have very little risk, as there is little interest in you from organizations that attempt to crack down of piracy. These organizations have a better use of their resources if they attempt to stop the sharing at the source. This leads to community members not staying true to their side of the obligation. There has been a lot of talk in recent years about fighting digital piracy. In 2012 two bills, the Stop Online Privacy Act and the Protect IP Act were in circulation. There were several major tech companies fighting, "AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga". While SOPA and PIPA were known online, they lacked the mass media presence. It was after a prime-time news broadcast that the

Hager 7 storm of rebelling started. Quickly the bills had new revisions in the attempt to gaining support. It was not until "Wednesday, Jan. 18: The Day The Internet Went Dark" when millions of people were greeted by their favorite sites "with blacked out screens and calls to actions for fighting SOPA and PIPA". The blacked out screens got the ball rolling. People started to talk, tweet, and share their opinions with their state representatives. There was no longer anyway to hide SOPA and PIPA from the mainstream. By Friday, both bills were down (Fitzpatrick). During this time, SOPA became the conversation on everyone's mind. People on the internet love to communicate, after all that is its primary role, and when anything attempts to restrict and inhibit our ability to communicate, the people of the internet take a stand. Even though SOPA and PIPA were stopped that does not mean there will not be other attempts to pass legislature. The best way to solve this issue is not legislature but a "freemium model where users can have the content for free and then pay for a premium service"(Josh). Societies view on copyright protections affect the industries. Piracy is becoming second hand nature in today's society. With the poor economy, and the underprivileged unable to purchase and enjoy everything there is to offer, they resort to copyright infringement. Piracy is so common that as more people join the community the chances of pushing people from pirating become lower and lower. While copyright infringement is mostly seen as wrong, this does not stop the want for free content. The producers, developers and designers loss in revenue has caused backlash resulting in forces to work harder to protect their investments and time. This increase in work causes the cost of production to rise and thus prices will rise consequently resulting in more copyright

Hager 8 infringement. This vicious cycle can have so many endings, least likely of which is them giving up on protecting their goods, so that leads to an uncertain future in copyright protections.

Hager 9 Works Cited Cenite, Mark, Wang M. Wanzheng, Peiwen Chong, and Chan G. Shimin. "More Than Just Free Content." Journal of Communication Inquiry. 33.3 (2009): 206-221. Print. Fitzpatrick, Alex. "The Week That Killed SOPA: A Timeline." Mashable.com 20 Jan. 2012, Politics: NewsBank. Web. 9 Apr. 2014. Josh. "Piracy is Wrong, But it Feels So Right." Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 11 Oct. 2011. Web. 20 March. 2014. Of The Morning Call, Christina Gostomski. "Colleges target music, movie downloads ** Fearing lawsuits, local and national schools issue student warnings." Morning Call, The (Allentown, PA) 5 Sep. 2003, FIRST, NAITONAL: A1. NewsBank. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. Parr, Ben. "What Does Social Media Mean for Piracy?" Mashable.com 12 Apr. 2009, Tech & Gadgets: NewsBank. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. Swift, Mike. "GOOGLE PREVAILS AGAINST VIACOM - $1 BILLION COPYRIGHT SUIT COULD HAVE CHANGED USER-GENERATED CONTENT SITES AS WE KNOW THEM." San Jose Mercury News (CA) 24 Jun. 2010, Valley Final, Front: 1A. NewsBank. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. "Statistics." Statistics - YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web 29 Apr. 2014. "U.S. Copyright Office - Definitions (FAQ)." U.S. Copyright Office - Definitions (FAQ). N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.