Digital Piracy

Non-Commercial digital piracy has seen an unprecedented rise in the wake of the digital revolution; with wide-scale downloading and sharing of copyrighted media online, often committed by otherwise law-abiding citizens. Bringing together perspectives from criminology, psychology, business, and adopting a morally neutral stance, this book offers a holistic overview of this growing phenomenon. It considers its cultural, commercial, and legal aspects, and brings together international research on a range of topics, such as copyright infringement, intellectual property, music publishing, movie piracy, and changes in consumer behaviour. This book offers a new perspective to the growing literature on cybercrime and digital security. This multi-disciplinary book is the first to bring together international research on digital piracy and will be key reading for researchers in the fields of criminology, psychology, law and business.

When most people think of piracy, they think of Bittorrent and The Pirate Bay. These public manifestations of piracy, though, conceal an elite worldwide, underground, organized network of pirate groups who specialize in obtaining media – music, videos, games, and software – before their official sale date and then racing against one another to release the material for free. Warez: The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy is the first scholarly research book about this underground subculture, which began life in the pre-internet era Bulletin Board Systems and moved to internet File Transfer Protocol servers (“topsites") in the mid- to late-1990s. The “Scene," as it is known, is highly illegal in almost every aspect of its operations. The term “Warez" itself refers to pirated media, a derivative of “software." Taking a deep dive in the documentary evidence produced by the Scene itself, Warez describes the operations and infrastructures an underground culture with its own norms and rules of participation, its own forms of sociality, and its own artistic forms. Even though forms of digital piracy are often framed within ideological terms of equal access to knowledge and culture, Eve uncovers in the Warez Scene a culture of competitive ranking and one-upmanship that is at odds with the often communalist interpretations of piracy. Broad in scope and novel in its approach, Warez is indispensible reading for anyone interested in recent developments in digital culture, access to knowledge and culture, and the infrastructures that support our digital age.

The complex world of online piracy and peer-to-peer file sharing is skillfully condensed into an easy-to-understand guide that provides insight into the criminal justice approach to illegal file sharing, while offering guidance to parents and students who have concerns about potential legal action in response to file-sharing activities. While the actual impact of digital piracy is nearly impossible to precisely calculate, the threat of financial damage from illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing to the world's highest-grossing entertainment firms (and even entire industries!) has garnered attention from government, industry, and academic leaders and criminal justice professionals. Oftentimes, those providing access to computers and file sharing capabilities-parents, schools, libraries-don't know about or understand these activities and, therefore, put themselves and their families at risk for criminal and civil prosecution. This work describes the technological, legal, social, and ethical facets of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing. Geared toward parents, teachers, librarians, students, and any other computer user engaged in file sharing, this book will help readers to understand all forms of traditional and digital copyright violations of protected music, movies, and software. To date over 18,000 P2P users have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Most of these users have been college students and parents of high-school students. While word of these law suits are spreading, and many parents fear that their children may be using a family computer to illegally download and share copyrighted works, few supervising adults have the technical knowledge needed to determine whether and to what extent pirating may be occurring via a computer and Internet connection they are legally responsible for. Additionally, while P2P networks are filled with millions of users with billions of copyrighted files, few users understand the ways in which they are illegally using computers and other mobile electronic devices to download protected content. While describing both technical and social issues, this book primarily focuses on the social aspects of illegal file sharing, and provides technical concepts at a general level. Fisk skillfully condenses the complex nature of file sharing systems into an easy-to-understand guide, provides insight into the criminal justice approach to illegal file sharing, and offers guidance to parents and students who have concerns about potential legal action in response to file sharing activities.

The international battle against Internet pirates has been heating up. Increasingly law enforcement is paying attention to book piracy as ebook publishing gains an ever-larger market share. With this threat to their health and even survival, publishers and authors must act much like the music, film, and software giants that have waged war against pirates for the past two decades. Now, The Battle against Internet Piracy opens a discussion on what happens to the victims of piracy. Drawing from a large number of interviews—from writers, self-publishers, mainstream publishers, researchers, students, admitted pirates, free speech advocates, attorneys, and local and international law enforcement officials—the text speaks to such issues as: •Why pirates have acted and how they feel about it •The conflict over constitutional rights and piracy •The current laws surrounding Internet piracy •Examples of cases taken against some pirates •Alternatives to piracy •Personal experiences of being ripped off •The ways piracy affects different industries and how they’ve responded Author Gini Graham Scott prepares readers to arm themselves against these modern perils by learning about copyright, infringement, and how to prevent, combat, and end book piracy. Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.

Non-Commercial digital piracy has seen an unprecedented rise in the wake of the digital revolution; with wide-scale downloading and sharing of copyrighted media online, often committed by otherwise law-abiding citizens. Bringing together perspectives from criminology, psychology, business, and adopting a morally neutral stance, this book offers a holistic overview of this growing phenomenon. It considers its cultural, commercial, and legal aspects, and brings together international research on a range of topics, such as copyright infringement, intellectual property, music publishing, movie piracy, and changes in consumer behaviour. This book offers a new perspective to the growing literature on cybercrime and digital security. This multi-disciplinary book is the first to bring together international research on digital piracy and will be key reading for researchers in the fields of criminology, psychology, law and business.

Provides a guide to the confusing world of copyright, intellectual property, and their related legal issues, also includes information on how to protect intellectual property on the Internet.

This book builds an empirical basis towards creating broader prevention and intervention programs in curbing digital piracy. It addresses the psychosocial, cultural and criminological factors associated with digital piracy to construct more efficient problem-solving mechanisms. Digital piracy including online piracy involves illegal copying of copyrighted materials. This practice costs the software industry, entertainment industry, and governments billions of dollars every year. Reports of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Business Software Alliance (BSA) view piracy largely in the light of economic factors; the assumption being that only those who cannot afford legitimate copies of software, music, and movies indulge in it. Drawing on research and theories from various disciplines like psychology, sociology, criminology, and law, the authors have designed an empirical study to understand the contribution of psychological, cultural and criminological factors to digital piracy. The chapters include data from India and China, which continue to be on the Special 301 report priority watch list of the WIPO, and Serbia, which has been on the watch list 4 times. They examine the role of self-control, self-efficacy, perceived punishment severity, awareness about digital piracy, peer influence, neutralization techniques, novelty seeking, pro-industry factors and other socio-demographic factors in predicting digital piracy. This book addresses a large readership, comprising academics and researchers in psychology, criminology and criminal justice, law and intellectual property rights, social sciences, and IT, as well as policymakers, to better understand and deal with the phenomenon of digital piracy.

A study of digital piracy - the infringement of copyrighted content such as music, films, software, broadcasts, books, etc. - where the end product does not involve the use of hard media such as CDs or DVDs.