Anti-piracy
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Anti-piracy describes the attempt to prevent misappropriation of intellectual property typically occurring by copying of copyrighted work without permission or payment of royalties to the originator or rights owner.
It includes, but is by no mean limited to, the combined efforts of corporate associations (such as the RIAA and MPAA), law enforcement agencies (such as the FBI and Interpol), and various world governments to combat software piracy and other forms of copyright infringement. These measures often come in the form of copy-controlled software or audio-visual media, such as regionally-encoded DVDs.
Social Repercussions
The impact of piracy has traditionally been greater on individuals and small groups dependent on a purely digitally distributed product for their revenue streams than on large corporations with established markets and outlets who can leverage branding and are less dependent on digital distribution without accompanying physical media or support for revenue streams.
Conversely, many in the American and European communities feel that organizations such as the RIAA have overstepped their bounds in their anti-piracy efforts. In 1998, the United States Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, which severely limits the concept of “fair use” as it applies to audio-visual media. This act, coupled with other similar legislation in the years since, has caused a turn of public opinion against the media giants, especially in the music industry, where sales of CDs have dropped markedly. The RIAA blames this on peer-to-peer file sharing services such as KaZaA and Gnutella, which are widely used for the illegal distribution of copyrighted music in the MP3 format. Others argue, however, that file sharing — like radio broadcasts — simply serves as a means for users to “try before they buy”, and should not adversely affect CD sales. Opponents of the RIAA blame the drop in sales on many different factors, such as draconian copy prevention mechanisms in CDs, the litigious nature of the recording industry, a drop in the stock market and subsequent economical backlash. Both parties have also blamed other media such as DVDs, television, and videogames for the drop as well.
Examples of Anti-Piracy Campaigns
- RIAA suing file-sharers that share music over P2P networks such as KaZaA and Gnutella.
- MPAA encryption of DVD movies using the CSS cipher and prohibiting the distribution and use of DeCSS, while also having the effect of banning open source DVD player software.
See Also
- Open source and the open source movement