Topic 11 - yarrrrrrh..Pirates

Lecture - Stealing the Internets

Copyright is a form of protection provided by laws to the authors of literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. The law enables copyright owners to control use of their material in a number of ways, such as making copies, issuing copies to the public, performing in public, broadcasting and use on-line. Over the past several years, copyright owners of music, movies and other digital media have seen an exponential increase of piracy with the introduction of affordable broadband technology. As a result, many copyright holders, particularly the record and movie studios, have begun introducing DRM (Digital Rights Management) to their products in an attempt to curb the growing rate of piracy. Current DRM standards have had a negative impact on consumers purchasing legal music and movies online as it imposes severe limitations on the downloaded media. Thus the organizations implementing DRM are negatively impacting the consumers who wish to purchase their products legally. One can argue that piracy has been boosted thanks to the implementation of DRM.

Peer-to-peer file sharing software is one of the largest contributors to online piracy, effectively providing users with the ability to download a myriad of copyrighted content. Most downloaded content usually includes latest released movies, new music and software. The moral question of ‘is downloading this content wrong’ is completely subjective with each person offering different perspectives. In my opinion, piracy is an inevitable part of life which will never be completely extinguished by corporations or governments. This point is reinforced by the inability of corporations to adequately adapt to current market conditions creating non-serviced consumers. Parallels can be drawn between online piracy and traditional black markets which both develop as a result of unmet demands.

The internet comprises of private networks which span the globe, therefore there is no single governing body. This allows pirates to hide in relative safely in countries with lax privacy laws such as Sweden. Mininova.org is a prime example of a website hosted in Sweden which provides its users with the ability to browse and download hundreds of thousands of copyrighted works.

Reading: When Pigs Fly

Adaptability is a key word for any business in any market. The business needs to be able to adapt to changing market conditions and forecast future conditions in order to survive. Simply put, locate consumer demand and satisfy it, when the demand changes, change your product or service to fulfill the new demand. The music industry, and in particular the labels, have outright failed to adapt to consumer demands. Technology not only allows users to quickly and easily access digital copies of music but it also enables us to get it for free. As mentioned in the article, we live in the iPod generation; consumers have become accustomed to downloading entire albums illegally online. Record Labels expect the same consumers to pay $30+ dollars for what they can receive for free. They have lost control of their distribution by not providing consumers with correct means of obtaining their products. Thus consumers have found alternative methods, largely in non-legal form, of obtaining their desired product. As mentioned previously, it’s the black market balance, what can’t be obtained through regular markets will be obtained through black markets. The music labels still follow the out-dated and traditional sales strategies; they are failing to understand the impact of technology on their market which will eventually lead to their demise.