Who's Stealing What

In all the discussion of internet piracy and the debate over what kind of laws should be implemented to curb the massive amounts of pirated material, little seems to be said about who is stealing what. Some nations stand out for pirating certain types of material, and some of those nations are placed on a U.S. government watch list.

Movies and television programs are a popular target for piracy and Russia leads the world in dollar value of pirated videos at $250,000,000 in lost revenue. China follows closely at $168,000,000 in pirated videos. It makes since that Russia would lead China in this statistic even though China has a larger population, because more of Russia’s population has access to internet access per capita.

In terms of music piracy, the U.S. leads the field with nearly a 100,000,000 downloads. The United Kingdom and Italy placed second and third with more than 76,000,000 between them. Music piracy got its start in the U.S., and the fact that we still lead the world should come as no surprise. New laws and regulations targeted at limiting piracy are controversial in the U.S. as people fear it could lead to more intense internet regulation. It will be interesting to see if legal and low cost music download sites can bring more users back to a legitimate means of purchasing music.

The U.S. government’s own trade report spotlights China and India as leaders in the use of illegal trade secrets and patented material. China receives special attention for theft of trade secrets outside of China. Because so many U.S. companies outsource production and other business practices to these countries and such problems are always a risk of outsourcing, this will likely remain a major problem for some time.

As each part of the world can see what types of material are the major targets of piracy there, they can better understand what kinds of laws and regulations are needed to combat them in the future.

For further reading and any of the above statistics see the following sources: http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-video-piracy-countries-map.html

http://www.techspot.com/news/50393-the-us-music-piracy-rankings-gainesville-fl-new-york-los-angeles-top-the-list.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/20/net-us-spain-piracy-idUSBRE98J0RD20130920

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2

http://www.ustr.gov/sites/default/files/05012013%202013%20Special%20301%20Report.pdf

A Six Strike Rule for Internet Piracy

In March 2013, the countries top Internet Service Providers started this program to deter illegal downloading and encourage offenders to become law-abiding.  The Six Strike Rule works as a series of messages:

First two: Educational messages to letting them know that their account has been used for illegal downloads.
Next two: Strongly worded messages with pop-ups that must be acknowledged before continuing to use the internet
Last two:  ISPs will do things such as slowing a user's connection down to make downloading harder.

It's not clear what will happen if you reach the sixth warning and the nature of the punishment.  The users will not be fully cut off from the internet and they can work their way around the system by changing or masking their addresses.  The real goal of the new system is to inform users that internet piracy is unlawful and wrong.  Last year their was a proposed Anti-Piracy Law that would have given regulators the power to shut off websites but it was turned down.

I believe that the Six Strike Rule is a strong program that is somewhat beneficial.  I think it will deter many from continuing to illegal download files because they will fear that they will be caught.  The users that it will not impact will be the users that know the laws and anti-piracy programs and know the way around them.

What is your stance on the Six Strike Rule?  Do you believe it is beneficial or not?

Here is the link to the full article from The Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323978104578334272714999326

New piracy regulations in the United Kingdom underway

Almost a quarter of downloads in the United Kingdom infringe copyright, and while only 2% of the web traffic is responsible, it is costing the UK music industry along an estimated £200 million (319,880,000 USD) annually. The British Phonographic Industry has decided to take action in an effort to combat piracy by tracking websites that link to illegal content. The BPI then requests search engines to remove the sites from their relative search results in attempts to slow revenue growth for those hosting the content illegally. Google has been working hard to combat piracy and their transparency report indicates that BPI has requested the removal of over 35,401,959 during this year.

I support the efforts of the BPI, and applaud Google for dedicated resources to tackling the global issue of piracy. However, in terms of how piracy has impacted the economy and end-consumer, I feel conflicted. I believe it is true that if companies had funds accounted for by pirating they could devote capital to furthering the progression of the scene, yet recent studies show that what the music industry lacks in audio sales, it makes up for in live performance revenue. Income from concerts has increased 10% annually, making music pirates out to be the loss leader. In response to the popularity and convenience of pirating, new businesses have surfaced creating affordable streaming options like Spotify and Google Play, which allow users a complete music library available on demand at a low monthly or yearly price. These services benefit both businesses and end users, providing evidence that the long-term economic effects of media piracy are not exclusively poor.

What do you think, does the economy really suffer due to piracy or do you think the claims by the music industry are a bit exaggerated?

You can read more information about piracy in the UK and the effects of piracy from my sources below:
            - Newsbeat meets the team tackling music piracy online
            - Ofcom: Piracy accounts for one in four downloads
            - The Hidden Effects of Media Piracy