Tackling Internet Piracy
Internet piracy is a growing problem for many media companies. File sharing of copyright material is estimated to cost the music industry alone nearly three million dollars a year. Piracy also presents a major problem for TV series and the film industry, with files becoming available over the internet often before they are released for legal purchase.
The estimates on the impact of internet piracy to media industries may be somewhat overstated. Many people who are illegally downloading music would no doubt have far less music on their MP3 players if they had they had to pay for all of the material. In fact, for many people, had they actually bought all of the material on their MP3 players then the costs may run into thousands of dollars; an unaffordable figure forcing them to look either at having a very small selection of music, or illegal downloads. Whatever the true figure, it undoubtedly represents a huge cost to the industry and one no-one seems to have a practical solution to.
Piracy is not new to the media industries. TV shows were commonly recorded on to VHS so that friends could watch it. Music has been copied onto blank tapes and distributed between groups of friends for years. There was a time when, on the beginning and end of tracks on many a teenagers tape collection, you could hear a radio DJ talking, the track having been carefully recorded so they could listen to at their leisure. But there is no doubting that illegal file sharing is an easier, and as a result more popular, method of piracy than anything that has come before it.
Solutions to the problem seem somewhat elusive. Initially legal action was taken against some of the bigger file sharing companies. In 2001, a court ruling forced Napster, at the time a major force in sharing of copy write material, to terminate their file sharing service. Now Napster presents a legitimate site for purchasing MP3s. For every site that was closed with legal action though, another ten seemed to pop up to replace them. One of the biggest legal hurdles here is that file sharing in itself is not illegal, only the sharing of copyright material.
There have been attempts to pursue people downloading, and perhaps more importantly uploading, files to the internet for sharing as well. This causes problems of its own; ultimately policing this is a very difficult job, with users able to mask their identity relatively easily.
There is also the question of who should be policing internet piracy. There is a common suggestion that this should be down to the internet service providers. They are reluctant to take on this mantle not just because of the difficulty and costs involved but, they suggest, because it would be in breach of their responsibilities to their customers. Not to mention that pursuing your customers with criminal actions is a sure way to make your customers look elsewhere for internet services.
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