2. HOW DOES INTERNET PIRACY DEVELOPED: THE
PAST
In the past piracy was limited, in that the individuals didn’t benefit from piracy and
the risk was too high for no financial benefits. Piracy didn’t really effect the music
industry to a huge degree as it was stigmatised as being ‘sleezy’ and often pirated
products were bad quality – putting people off from doing it. As well as them
needing to be Media Literate in order to pirate music and other products, which in
the start of the online age was rare.
3. However as knowledge of the world wide web and the workings of the internet spread the
limitations previously preventing them from committing online piracy changed.
With the music industry more at risk of piracy and losing potential profits the companies
began to work hard in combatting piracy.
4. HOW HAS INTERNET PIRACY DEVELOPED: NAPSTAR
Napstar (developed by John Fanning, Shawn Fanning, Sean Parker. 1999) was the first big
file sharing software to exist. Only running for two years Napster had over 25 million users
attracted by the sites ‘user-friendly interface’ and the easiness of it. All 80 million song files
were downloadable. Because of this of course it had law suits against it from various artists
who’d suffered from the piracy. Those law suits were settled, but the one that shut down
the site was when recording companies filed a law suit on the new Digital Millennium
Copyright act.
5. September 24, 2001, the case was partially settled. Napster agreed to pay music creators
and copyright owners a $26 million settlement for past, unauthorized uses of music, as well
as an advance against future licensing royalties of $10 million. In order to pay those fees,
Napster attempted to convert its free service into a subscription system.
Current stand –
On December 1, 2011, pursuant to a deal with Best Buy, Napster merged with Rhapsody.
Best Buy will receive a minority stake in Rhapsody
6. PIRATE BAY
Pirate Bay is not committing forms of piracy, however it is directing users to
websites to do offer more pirated material as well as allowing them to add to the
links. Users could register for free using a email address. Statistically, in 2013
TorrentFreak said only 9% of uploaded links were to audio.
It was founded in 2003 by Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sundev who have
been accused of making copyrighted material available. The Pirate Bay has been
involved in a number of lawsuits, both as plaintiff and as defendant. The founders
were found guilty of copyright and sentenced to one year in prison with a payment
of 30 million! This was later uplifted o a shorted prison sentence but a raised
payment to 46 million.
7. LIMEWIRE
“The site is launched by Mark Gorton, a former Wall Street trader with degrees from
Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. Like many other P2P (peer 2 peer) creators before and
since, Gorton has long insisted that the existence of his site is well within the confines of
the law.” – 2000
Limewire appeared only a year after Napster, which supported only MP3 files whereas
Limewire allows users to share music, video and software.
“P2P sharing allows the 'sharing' of files between two or more individuals connected to
the same network. By simply assigning certain directories on your computer to the
network, you can allow others to download your media files and help yourself to files on
others' directories.*
8. HOW CAN PEOPLE PIRATE MUSIC TODAY
In the modern online age people can pirate anything with ease, whether that’s
pirating films through streaming or downloading them to downloading music.
For music one of the most popular sites is Youtube-MP3 as its easy to use and all
you need to do is copy the URL from the Youtube video of the music you want and
copy it into the website where it converts it into downloadable audio.
(I couldn’t find any statistics about it?)
10. IMPACT PIRACY HAS HAD ON THE MUSIC
INDUSTRY
Some argue that illegal downloading,
although don’t financially benfit smaller
artists it can give them more exposure
in the sense their music may be passed
around more through these pirating
sites.
There's also been controversy about the
bigger artists and how much of a
difference piracy effects them. There
was a study done in 2013 which showed
the amount some artists earn:= and
how piracy actually doesn’t effect some
artists too badly individually.
11. HOWEVER…
“One credible analysis by the Institute for Policy Innovation
concludes that global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of
economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of
$2.7 billion in workers' earnings, and a loss of $422 million
in tax revenue.” – December 2014
12. HOW WE COMBAT ONLINE PIRACY
Case study – Google v Youtube – MP3
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/19103881/google-action-against-youtube-
music-rip-off-websites
13. GOOD REVISION SOURCES
• http://www.geek.com/gadgets/limewire-napster-the-pirate-bay-a-brief-history-
of-file-sharing-1359473/
