All The Facts on Online Piracy

What is Online Piracy?

Online piracy is a term used to elucidate on the illegal copying of licensed and copyrighted materials from the Internet. Online piracy, as a term, is widely used and upheld by agents who distribute licenses and trademarks for Internet companies in a multitude of industries.

There are three fundamental forms of Online Piracy: music piracy, software piracy, and movie piracy. Although other forms of online piracy exist, these three remain the most common and the most fundamental avenues for which online piracy is present.

The opponents of online piracy feel that the illegitimate or fraudulent actions of the maneuver pose a serious threat to the creative and artistic development of the world. In addition to violating terms in copyrights, opponents of the actions believe that online piracy limits profits, by reducing the amount of money an artist or programmer can obtain through the production of their particular good.

The majority of individuals who participate in online piracy do so to obtain the benefits of a particular item for free. The most dominating example of online piracy is found in the illegal download market for free media, such as music and movies. Opponents of the online piracy market further point out that the use of such creative works without paying for them also affects the large support staffs (i.e. publishers, designers, engineers, sound technicians etc.) who lends a hand in the creation of the work.

The most common form of Internet piracy that is present today are found in bit torrent sites. A Bit Torrent is an illegal, digital file-sharing program that is operated from a centralized location, which grants access to its users that allows them to participate in the transfer, import, and export of intellectual property.

Typically, a Bit Torrent website will contain a series of servers that houses the intellectual property through which is being circulated throughout the Bit Torrent web site; membership to Bit Torrent websites – ranging from those offered without a charge to those that require membership fees – are able to download and upload digital media belonging to the members of that particular Bit Torrent website.

Bit Torrent, which is classified as a Peer-to-Peer (p2p) digital file-sharing program is considered to be more efficient than its predecessors, which include Napster, Kazaa, and Limewire. In contrast to traditional fire-sharing programs in which full files are circulated through digital transmission, Bit Torrent sharing allows for the segmented transmission of digital media through its server(s); as a result, users are inundated with much smaller files, which allow for more a more comprehensive and seamless transmission – however, this design does not detract from the illegality innate in all file-sharing programs.

The criminal activity inherent in digital file-sharing can be covered by a multitude of legal fields, including copyright law, cyber law, and criminal law; the unlawful transmission and dissemination of digital media in lieu of both legal purchase, as well as financial recuperation on the part of the industry applicable to the digital media is considered to be a criminal activity punishable by law enforcement.