Jonathan Ruff

Definition  Piracy is defined as an act of or resembling robbery at sea.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be on the high seas. While piracy on the water is dangerous to crews, its impact on the global economy is not that great when compared to the more common form….

The Real Problem: Software Piracy Probably the most threatening to industries. Much more widespread and overlooked Music Movies Software Video Games

Are any of these icons familiar to you? LimewireuTorrentBitTorrent DC++Shakespeer

Excerpts from Legal Documents New Jersey Anti-Piracy Act: “c. A Person commits an offense who: …(3) Knowingly manufactures or transfers, directly or indirectly by any means, or records or fixes a sound recording or audiovisual work, with the intent to sell or distribute for commercial advantage or private financial gain…”

P2P P2P stands for “Peer to Peer”. P2P methods usually involve no central server, and are comprised of many individual computers that share data. The most common methods of P2P are Limewire and Bittorrent, which can be used on any computer with an internet connection. There are also smaller P2P operations that do involve central servers. The most prominent on the TCNJ campus is DC++

How P2P Works P2P is not difficult to track, but like a school of small fish, difficult to catch. Very few people who fileshare this way ever get caught. This is how it works: One person has a file they would like to share.

How P2P Works They upload the information, called a “torrent”, to a central server on the internet called a “tracker”.

How P2P Works When someone wants to download a file, they find the torrent through various online sources.

How P2P Works Then, rather than download the whole file at once, they download separate pieces of the file from other people called “seeders”

How P2P Works Since the file is being downloaded in many smaller pieces rather than one large piece, it finishes rather quickly.

Problems Caused As piracy rises, many parts of the entertainment industry suffer from drops in sales, notably music and movies. One industry that suffers in particular is Anime. It consists of 1% of the United States’ entertainment industry, but accounts for 60% of its pirated material.

Solutions (Or Attempts)

What Hasn’t Worked There have been several attempts in the industry to disable pirated music. Most have been actual software on the CD’s that prevent the disk from being played in anything except simple CD players. However, with the advent of the MP3 player age, being able to play a CD on a computer is a necessity. The anti-piracy technology does not work with the new demand, and there has been consumer backlash over attempts to implement the software.

What HAS Worked One man named Thom Yorke has started a new movement in music production/ distribution which cuts down instances of piracy. His band, Radiohead, released their latest album on their website. Instead of charging a flat rate for the album, fans payed however much they wanted to pay. The album, In Rainbows, was one of the top selling albums of Even though it didn’t reach #1 until it was physically released 3 months later, Thom revealed that they made more money from In Rainbows than all of their previous albums put together.

As with any other industry, it is subject to change over time. The music industry has been in a forced statusquo that is not natural. Even with Radiohead’s pioneering, most people payed nothing for the album or torrented it. But making it available for any price was a huge, controversial, and yet still wildly successful move. Part of the reason it worked was that the money for the album sales didn’t go to EMI, their record label, but to the band themselves, since they did this after their contract with EMI had expired.

Since Thom’s experiment, a few other artists have mimicked his method with positive results. In an interview earlier this year, Thom said: "There's a process of natural selection going on right now. The music business was waiting to die in its current form about 20 years ago. But then, hallelujah, the CD turned up and kept it going for a bit. But basically, it was dead.”

The Anime industry is also starting to professional alternatives to its piracy community. The biggest problem the fans had was that Japan is much further ahead in their favorite series. Certain fanmade groups would take the episodes after they aired on public TV in Japan, then add subtitles in various languages and then upload torrents of their “Fansubs”. This was also negatively affecting ratings and DVD sales in other parts of the world, so the producers of one popular series, Naruto, decided to air the episodes online with subtitles a week after their original airdates, satisfying the fans and ending the Naruto fansub group. However, recently, the original fansub group became official, and is now paid to sub the episodes as the professional group.

Torrenting, as a standalone technology and program, is perfectly legal. However, the sites that distribute the illegal Torrent files have been under legal assault in recent years. Some of the biggest names on the internet for public torrenting, such as thepiratebay.org and mininova.org are under legal attack. Late summer 2009, The Pirate Bay became a paysite, where members could not access the torrents without having a membership. Mininova was deemed unlawful by Dutch authorities, and is undergoing a process which may very well end with their site being taken down.

The Overreaction The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has filed a lawsuit against Joel Tenenbaum, a student at the University of Boston, for downloading 7 songs illegally through a filesharing network. The punishment they wish to inflict is way out of proportion to the damage he caused. “The reprehensibility of Joel’s alleged acts of downloading seven songs does not rise to a level which would justify civil punitive damages. The Defendant did not engage in a violent act; there was no malice involved; and the Defendant did not attempt to make a profit from his alleged acts.” (Excerpt from the defense document)”

“RIAA website trumpeting extreme penalties, including $150,000-per-song in civil damages and $250,000 criminal fines; asking readers: “Don’t you have a better way to spend five years and $250,000?” $150,000 for a 3 minute audio clip? If there is no profit involved, is that really necessary, just, or even remotely justifiable? “(RIAA website billing their legal actions as a method to alter “attitudes, practices, [and] cultural norms”). The ends that Plaintiffs seek – social engineering – are simply of a different scope than the means they are employing – lawsuits against individual students for some allegedly unlawful mouse-clicks on a computer screen. This Court should find that Plaintiffs’ goal is simply so far-reaching that it is not “properly involved in the proceeding” against Joel Tenenbaum and is therefore an abuse of process.” This is what the music industry has become. Bloodthirsty businessmen who refuse to accept that their industry has changed.

Conclusions Technology is beyond the point where it can be legally maintained effectively. Piracy will never be eradicated, and will most likely stay very mainstream The music industry is changing, and there needs to be adaptation if it wants to survive in its present form. Some regulation needs to be put into effect, and old laws need to be reevaluated.

Sources Bittorrent- Limewire- New Jersey Laws- Anti-Piracy Technologies- How Torrenting Works- Joel’s Legal Defense Document- oppositiontomotiontodismiss.pdf Naruto Fansub group-