Din+Loretta

Music and Movie Piracy in our Society With today’s technologies, it has become easier to create, download, share and use music and movies for free. Today’s ever advancing technologies allow portable music players to integrate into other devices such as car audio, alarm clock, home audio allowing them to be enjoyed everywhere. Essentially, it is easier to download some music to put into our iPods than it is to go buy either a hard copy or purchase something online then download and transfer it into an iPod, all of this can be done in the comfort of one’s own home and takes very little time. With movie pirating, people can easily download or purchase movies that are still in theatres and obtain their own copy of it months before the movie comes out for purchase. As internet and disc burning technologies become faster, it makes files easier accessible by all users. With advancements in home theatre PC, media hubs/hard drives and all in one media centres it makes it more convenient for users to integrate and view pirated movies in their own home entertainment setups. Piracy has been a main concern of the music and movie industries for over a decade and today, there is still no real solution to stop piracy in our society but rather, as technology advances more ways to pirate music or movies are developed, the impacts are devastating both industries.

Music or movie piracy is any form of “unauthorized reproduction and distribution” (Copyright Infringement) of media, otherwise, any act of copyright infringement is considered piracy. This takes place all around us from MP3s to pirated DVDs, all of which are acts of music and movie piracy. Main stakeholders involved in music and movie piracy include the music and film industry and anyone that participates in acts of music or movie piracy, no matter it be involvement with distribution, reproduction or even simply just listening/viewing the pirated media. Piracy is a crime and as a campaign to fight against piracy, the Australian government initially created an advertisement indicating piracy is a crime and is no difference from theft. This advertisement is often shown on television, included in home videos and also at the movie theatres.

media type="youtube" key="0Pnjyrzkepo" height="344" width="425" "Illegal Downolading - Inappropriate for All Ages aka Movie Piracy - It's a Crime" via YouTube.com

In an economics point of view “the consumer does not pay for a movie that she otherwise would have purchased, so the movie industry is indeed selling one less movie” (Rob and Waldfogel) therefore anyone who is participating in purchasing or viewing pirated movies is in turn hurting the movie industry. Another point is “consider two friends, both of whom have willingness to pay below market price of a DVD, but with a combined willingness to pay above the price. Then in the absence of file sharing technology, neither of them buys a DVD of the movie. On the other hand, with file sharing technology, they agree to buy one DVD between them and make a copy, which increase sales” ( (Rob and Waldfogel). Considering the above scenario, having pirating technology available may actually stimulate sales for individuals whom may have otherwise not bought a DVD at all. Although with this scenario there is a displacement of the sales revenue as two people are only purchasing one DVD, but it still does generate some sales revenue for the DVD. Currently, considering the large file size of a movie and the time it takes to share one, not as many people would have the time or bother to download as compared to downloading a song which takes much less time therefore “movie revenues continue to increase, which is in sharp contrast to music revenues” (Rob and Waldfogel). Another main reason why “movie piracy is currently less of a concern than music piracy” (Peitz and Waelbroeck) is because it is more difficult to copy DVDs because “copying DVDs is hardware protected” (Peitz and Waelbroeck).

Action to fight against movie piracy has been taken by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), they have issued lawsuits to hundreds of people for illegally downloading and trading films online and many torrent based pirated movie sharing websites have been shut down. This issue is “getting worse...[because] growing access to broadband likely plays a role, as higher Internet speeds made downloading large movie files faster” (Leung). Some companies have resorted to the “if you can’t beat them, join them” strategy as they use the technology used by movie pirates to distribute their movies for a fee. They have developed “In2Movies, a peer-to-peer file sharing network that lets users download movies for the price of a DVD” (Leung). Today, such network is still not widely popular but it is an alternative that more production companies can try, possibly at a lower price than a DVD as online distribution there won’t be any shipping and print making necessary, thus lowering production costs.

Music piracy has been a longer and tougher battle than movie piracy, pirating songs is much more accessible and faster processes allow more people participate in it on a regular basis. The music industry has taken many actions against music piracy. One of the most famous battles was the music industry vs. Napster. The original Napster was released in 1999, it was an online music file sharing program, one of its key features was “its technology allowed people to easily copy and distribute MP3 files among each other, bypassing the established market for such songs and thus leading to the music industry’s accusations of massive copyright violations” (“Napster”). In 2000, Metallica files a lawsuit against Napster when a demo of their song leaked across Napster before it was officially released; this led to a battle between the music industry and Napster which ended in Napster’s demise as they lost the case and officially shut down in 2001. Although Napster has been shut down in a very public lawsuit by the music industry, there have been many similar peer-to-peer file sharing programs popping up ever since, currently one of the most popular p2p program is Limewire which allows users to search, share and download files.

A solution that the music industry has come up with to fight against Music piracy was to sell song downloads of the internet. The most popular and widely used website/program for legally downloading songs is Apple’s iTunes music store, it allows users to listen to a short sample of the song before downloading, it has top 10 lists, recommendations and the songs are sold at a reasonable price usually at $0.99 per song. This music download website/program is integrated into Apple’s iTunes software which acts as a media player and also allows users to sync their iPods with it allowing them to easily transfer all their purchased songs from the iTunes store into their iPod. This service is very successful and with advancements in the technology of the iPod to allow video playback and applications to be installed on it, this has led to the addition of a video store and an apps store in iTunes. Although iTunes is very successful and is indeed a great solution to the need of users wanting to download songs allowing them to buy individual songs as compared to buying a CD just because they like a couple of the songs on it, it has not eliminated music piracy as it is equally as easy for users to find and download music for free online or with p2p software even after the elimination of Napster. Today iTunes music is still very popular and widely used therefore it greatly helps generate revenue in the music industry allowing for it to keep alive but still not eliminating music piracy.

Today, music and movie piracy is still very apparent in our society, it definitely is not something that will be easily eliminated but many efforts by both the music and movie industries to take down piracy have been made. Although piracy still exists and will continue to exist, the music and movie industries have found other routes to generate revenues keeping them still alive and prosperous even with the existence of piracy.

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