Definitions
everything explained
What is Online Piracy?
Three definitions of software piracy are: as a purchased, legal copy that is installed on more computers than the copy is licensed for; as software that is illegally sold or distributed; and as software that is downloaded from the Internet but never paid for.
History
Online piracy developed through the use of the Internet. The Internet was originally meant for efficient communication between 2 different places. Hence, people also started to use the Internet to send files to another.
File sharing began with FTP and was further proliferated with the birth of Napster in 1999. Napster revolutionized the way we shared our files with the introduction of the peer-to-peer (P2P) application which allowed sharing of files with people who possessed the same application. This eventually opened doors to the whole world as people were able to share files across continents.
Other copycat programs such as KaZaA, Imesh and Morpheus emerged as alternatives. Unlike Napster’s main use of sharing on MP3 files, these programs provided a larger array of content including images, movies and software.
We will also discuss the shift of piracy media onto traditional
files hosting, which provide a quicker avenue for dissemination. These have since been denominated as online piracy.
Mediums of Piracy
1. Napster
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Napster was the first of its kind to have entered the market, made possible by the vision of a college student, Shawn Fanning. Fanning saw the potential of the Internet being a medium where people are able to share their files as there was undoubtedly information on people’s hard disks which were not utilized and could be of use to others. This notion gave birth to the initial and principal agenda of Napster where an integrated system allows people to readily share their files. - Launched officially in June 1999, Napster paved the way for peer-to-peer sharing systems, which became largely successful. However it was technically not involved with the peer-to-peer file sharing. It simply monitored the integrated system and files from their central servers - a process described as the ‘receptacle’ of information. The Information Age came about with the introduction of file transfers in our world. Information which used to be inaccessible and exclusive was now made available to everyone. Napster first entered and revolutionised the way we transfer and share our files. Having its humble beginnings in the room of a college student, the technology is now widespread.
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The interdependency of users is crucial in the success of Napster and it had attracted its customers due to its ability to make everything free for all. Napster's appeal was defined by its unlimited supply of free goods and its ability to remove all barriers in the possession of information. Napster soon rapidly became the dominant library of music files. By removing the price factor, Napster was essentially the pioneer of Internet piracy and therefore Napster had since been labeled to be an advocate of stealing. However, in 2001, Napster was indicted and was eventually closed down for its indirect involvement in piracy. It was subsequently reestablished in 2002 as a legitimate avenue for music to be downloaded, being renamed as Napster 2.0. Not surprisingly, its legitimacy has deterred users to newer sites which provides free 'goods'.
2. Kazaa, Gnutella etc
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Unlike Napster, Kazaa made use of a decentralized system which allowed users to directly share certain segments of the files concurrently for other users to download. Kazaa applied the FastTrack protocol where users were classified into two groups, which exploits the speeds of technically superior computers in the file-sharing process and was condemned by its users for subtle intrusion of privacy.
In light of Napster's lawsuit, Kazaa was an improved version of a file-sharing medium as it was engineered to exempt it from being liable to users' activities.
- Kazaa was capitalising on the weaknesses of our laws, showing the boundless limitations of technology when every computer is connected via the Internet.
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The advantages of interconnectivity are now the very reason how piracy is able to be prevalent in our society. However, in the pursuit of eradicating piracy, laws had been altered to direct the liability to individual users. Nevertheless, the massive number of online pirates in the world is a direct evasion of the law as it is impossible to charge every individual. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had since been established in 2003 to hunt down individual users. Constant law enforcements, hence, have to be passed to ensure that piracy is completely eliminated.
3. BitTorrent
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New and better systems continue to emerge to meet the needs of online pirates. Bittorrent, unlike other peer-to-peer downloading methods, unloads some of its file tracking work to the central server or tracker. They had developed a system known as tit-for-tat which implicitly entitled users to faster downloads if they shared more files with others, effectively solving the problem of leeching. The file that a user is downloading could come from various sources concurrently.
With Bittorrent, users are able to download large, highly-demanded files with rapid file transfers which is a relatively strong appeal for users to download.
Piracy has evolved into a highly demanded service over the years and the service has been improved drastically to ease of process of piracy. Bittorrent is still being used and predictions of better mediums in future are not surprising.
LASTLY; The Reaction
In the midst of the war against online piracy, intellectual property laws and organizations such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have been formed to reduce online piracy. New technologies such as Data Rights Management (DRM) have been created in the attempt to stop online piracy. Despite these efforts, we see that online piracy is still widespread due to the ever-increasing demand for it.