Copyright Infringement By: Brennan, Bunmi, Amy, & Mirrie

What is Copyright Infringement? The illegal act of unauthorized use of material covered by copyright laws Owners of copyrighted material have rights to the reproduction and distribution of the work

Piracy Piracy is the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of electronic and audio- visual work It is nowadays the most commonly violated form of Copyright infringement Internet is making it extremely easy to illegally share music in the form of MP3s Movies are often ripped from DVDs or are filmed with camcorders in movie theaters

Background on Copyright Piracy was first mentioned in 1703 by David In 1976 the copyright laws were changed to encompass those copyrighting for non- profit reasons Copyright infringement became a recent issue because of the development of Napster and other file sharing systems

Copyright Criticisms Issue of whether certain ideas are legitimately owned Some corporate interests use copyright laws to create unfair advantages in the market place Copyright laws make it harder for pair to pair file sharing for example: music, documents and movies

Steps in the Right Direction 1.International cooperation between countries to better enforce copyright laws 2.Technological advances making piracy more difficult

Our Opinion On Copyright Infringement Due to the lack of inexpensive ways to obtain copyrighted materials, there are copious amounts of copyright infringement. If there were cheaper options available it would greatly reduce the amount of illegal activity. We feel that though the copyright laws are valid, the punishments for violating the copyright laws are too harsh.