Digital piracy : theory

This article reviews recent theoretical contributions on digital piracy. It starts by elaborating on the reasons for intellectual property protection, by reporting a few facts about copyright protection, and by examining reasons to become a digital pirate. Next, it provides an exploration of the consequences of digital piracy, using a base model and several extensions (with consumer sampling, network effects, and indirect appropriation). A closer look at market-structure implications of end-user piracy is then taken. After a brief review of commercial piracy, additional legal and private responses to end-user piracy are considered. Finally, a quick look at emerging new business models is taken.information good, piracy, copyright, IP protection, internet, peer-to-peer, software, music

Digital Piracy: Theory

This article reviews recent theoretical contributions on digital piracy. It starts by elaborating on the reasons for intellectual property protection, by reporting a few facts about copyright protection, and by examining reasons to become a digital pirate. Next, it provides an exploration of the consequences of digital piracy, using a base model and several extensions (with consumer sampling, network effects, and indirect appropriation). A closer look at market-structure implications of end-user piracy is then taken. After a brief review of commercial piracy, additional legal and private responses to end-user piracy are considered. Finally, a quick look at emerging new business models is taken.information good, piracy, copyright, IP protection, internet, peer-to-peer, software, music

Filtering, Piracy Surveillance and Disobedience

There has always been a cyclical relationship between the prevention of piracy and the protection of civil liberties. While civil liberties advocates previously warned about the aggressive nature of copyright protection initiatives, more recently, a number of major players in the music industry have eventually ceded to less direct forms of control over consumer behavior. As more aggressive forms of consumer control, like litigation, have receded, we have also seen a rise in more passive forms of consumer surveillance. Moreover, even as technology has developed more perfect means for filtering and surveillance over online piracy, a number of major players have opted in favor of “tolerated use,” a term coined by Professor Tim Wu to denote the allowance of uses that may be otherwise infringing, but that are allowed to exist for public use and enjoyment. Thus, while the eventual specter of copyright enforcement and monitoring remains a pervasive digital reality, the market may fuel a broad degree of consumer freedom through the toleration or taxation of certain kinds of activities. This Article is meant largely to address and to evaluate these shifts by drawing attention to the unique confluence of these two important moments: the growth of tolerated uses, coupled with an increasing trend towards more passive forms of piracy surveillance in light of the balance between copyright enforcement and civil liberties. The content industries may draw upon a broad definition of disobedience in their campaigns to educate the public about copyright law, but the market’s allowance of DRM-free content suggests an altogether different definition. The divide in turn between copyright enforcement and civil liberties results in a perfect storm of uncertainty, suggesting the development of an even further division between the role of the law and the role of the marketplace in copyright enforcement and innovation, respectively

Digital Rights Management, Intellectual Property Rights Protection and Economic development: The case of digital piracy in the South Mediterranean countries

Abstract: The potential benefits that could be gained from information technologies in South Mediterranean economies are constrained by both DRM and institutional protection related to Intellectual Property Rights. But, pervasive piracy can appear to be a major obstacle to access these benefits. This paper through a simplified theoretical decision model attempts to suggest foundations to reveal levels of protection rates. This is followed by an empirical assessment of the likely effects of different macroeconomic variables in the context of selected South Mediterranean countries using software piracy data and the protection rates derived from the above model. This is intended to reveal the most important variables that drive software protection. The results attained show how protection should be strengthened through further investments in knowledge and through openness to foreign direct investments that lead to superior economic outcomes.Key words: DRM; Information and communication technologies; piracy; South Mediterranean economies.

Digital Rights Management and Consumer Acceptability: A Multi-Disciplinary Discussion of Consumer Concerns and Expectations

The INDICARE project – the Informed Dialogue about Consumer Acceptability of DRM Solutions in Europe – has been set up to raise awareness about consumer and user issues of Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions. One of the main goals of the INDICARE project is to contribute to the consensus-building among multiple players with heterogeneous interests in the digital environment. To promote this process and to contribute to the creation of a common level of understanding is the aim of the present report. It provides an overview of consumer concerns and expectations regarding DRMs, and discusses the findings from a social, legal, technical and business perspective. A general overview of the existing EC initiatives shows that questions of consumer acceptability of DRM have only recently begun to draw wider attention. A review of the relevant statements, studies and reports confirms that awareness of consumer concerns is still at a low level. Five major categories of concerns have been distinguished so far: (1) fair conditions of use and access to digital content, (2) privacy, (3) interoperability, (4) transparency and (5) various aspects of consumer friendliness. From the legal point of view, many of the identified issues go beyond the scope of copyright law, i.e. the field of law where DRM was traditionally discussed. Often they are a matter of general or sector-specific consumer protection law. Furthermore, it is still unclear to what extent technology and an appropriate design of technical solutions can provide an answer to some of the concerns of consumers. One goal of the technical chapter was exactly to highlight some of these technical possibilities. Finally, it is shown that consumer acceptability of DRM is important for the economic success of different business models based on DRM. Fair and responsive DRM design can be a profitable strategy, however DRM-free alternatives do exist too.Digital Rights Management; consumers; Intellectual property; business models

Student Digital Piracy In The Florida State University System:an Exploratory Study On Its Infrastructural Effects

Digital piracy is a problem that may never disappear from society. Through readily available resources such as those found in a university, students will always have access to illegal goods. While piracy is a global phenomenon, an institution\u27s resources combined with the typical college student\u27s lack of funds makes it more lucrative. Students use a number of methods to justify their actions ranging from previewing media to bringing justice to a corrupt company. While trying to understand the mindset of pirates is one route to deal with piracy, corporations attempted to alleviate the situation using added software encoding. These messages are not always effective, and in some cases caused further damage to consumer morale. Furthermore, students such as Joel Tenenbaum, who continued to pirate music despite warnings from his parents and the recording industry, exemplify the type of person that is unfazed by legal threats, leading to a question of ethics. Students may not feel that downloading is stealing despite numerous warnings from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other major media organizations. The predominant solution used by universities involves monitoring the students\u27 network connection to detect Peer-to-Peer (P2P) connections or other connections that involve the transferring of copyrighted goods. Unfortunately, the current tools contain flaws that a crafty student may easily circumvent, undermining any attempts a university\u27s IT department may use to deter piracy. This study explored the nature of piracy prevention tools used by IT departments in the Florida State University System in order to determine their relative effectiveness. The study also looked into the opinions of the Information Security Officer in terms of alternative piracy prevention techniques that do not involve legal action and monitoring. It was found that most institutions do not use a formal piece of software that monitors for infringing data. They also stated that while their current techniques can do its required task, it was not perfected to a point where it could run autonomously. Furthermore, institutions agreed that students lack proper ethics and concern over the matter of copyright, but were not fully convinced that other preventions methods would be effective. The study ultimately considered monitoring techniques a short-term solution and that more research should be put into finding long-term solutions. It also implied that IT departments should be better funded in order to keep up with the technological gap

A study on reducing digital piracy: an analytical network process approach with benefits, opportunities, costs and risks analysis

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia e Gestão IndustrialThe world and the information technology in general has in recent years undergone a major transformation due to rapid technological innovations that became universally available to all. These innovations that are constantly being introduced bring an increasing ease of access, use, mobility and other gains which in turn are also facilitators to illegal activities, allowing for the acquisition of products that are identical to the original without there being any loss of quality in the copy process. This led to technologies that were created in order to prevent such practices of digital piracy and give more control to those who own the intellectual property rights, known as Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies. The application of these technologies has brought new problems, such as excessive restrictions that do not satisfy consumers and may harm society in general by restricting the freedom of use and exchange of ideas. Although there is scientific work on this issue, there has never been applied a multi-criteria analysis to assist in the decision making of what could be the best solution to reduce digital piracy. By developing an analytical network process (ANP) model with analysis of benefits, opportunities, costs and risks (BOCR), this dissertation seeks to fill the gap in the scientific community with the implementation of a multi-criteria decision making process to determine the best alternative for this problem. Finally, in this dissertation there is also a practical application of the developed model in the national digital books area

Copyright Law in the Digital Age

Copyright infringement of digital media is an ever-increasing problem. While there have been attempts to solve this problem through both legal and technological measures, no solutions have been satisfactory. Many people are uneducated about the legal aspects, and technological measures are easily circumvented. By analyzing various documents and news articles, and by conducting interviews with various people representing all sides of the issue, the team was able assess the situation and to provide recommendations to improve it

Is TPM a dirty word? Digital rights management-systems and video games within the EU

Dator- och TV-spel är relativt nyligen introducerade och komplext utformade verk, vilket innebär en utmaning avseende upphovsrättsligt skydd. I huvudsak består ett sådant spel av ett flertal olika upphovsrättsliga alster, inkluderande programvaran, som är oupplösligt sammansatta i en och samma produkt. Detta leder till att den upphovsrättsliga klassificeringen varierar beroende på aktuell jurisdiktion, då harmonisering ännu inte har uppnåtts inom EU avseende sådana verk. Den upphovsrättsliga klassificeringen av dator- och TV-spel påverkar tillämpligheten av EU:s upphovsrättsliga skyddsåtgärdslagstiftning och därmed även utvärderingen av de elektroniska system (DRM-system) som används för att förvalta digitala rättigheter. Då denna utvärdering utgör en signifikant del i detta arbete, var ett försök till klargörande påkallat. Det visades att det föreligger indikationer på att dator- och TV-spel inte bör betraktas som enbart programvara, utan snarare bedömas vara en komplex sammanslagning av olika intellektuella verk. Den snabba tekniska utvecklingen har gjort det jämförelsevis lätt att få obehörig tillgång till och nyttja upphovsrättsskyddat material, vilket resulterat i en växande illegal konsumtion av dator- och TV-spel. För att motverka detta och skydda sina ensamrätter nyttjar rättighetshavare vissa system för elektronisk förvaltning av digitala rättigheter, DRM-system, avsedda att begränsa eller helt förhindra obehörig åtkomst och användning. Av de rättsligt skyddade verktyg som används uppfattas särskilt de tekniska skyddsåtgärderna (TPMs) av legitima slutanvändare som alltför restriktiva då de både begränsar åtkomst till och komplicerar användningen av dator- och TV-spelet, inbegripet handlingar som inte kräver rättsinnehavarens tillstånd. Effekten av implementerade DRM-system, särskilt TPMs, på den illegala konsumtionen och på slutanvändarnas attityder illustreras som ett led i utvärderingen av de facto effektiviteten av TPMs. Det hävdas att TPMs inte tillräckligt effektivt förhindrar den illegala konsumtionen, och vissa forskare vill även mena att användandet av TPMs kan öka omfattningen av upphovsrättsintrång, sprunget ur ett växande missnöje med dessa inom dator- och TV-spelar forum. En annan aspekt av implementering av DRM-system, särskilt TPMs, är den potentiella konflikt som uppkommer genom att rättighetshavarens fundamentala rätt till egendom ställs mot slutanvändarens fundamentala rätt till yttrande- och informationsfrihet. Detta berättigade en utredning av huruvida TPMs gör intrång i slutanvändarens fundamentala rättigheter, och, om så är fallet, ifall detta kan anses utgöra en otillåten kränkning. Det framkommer att TPMs kan anses göra intrång i rätten till yttrande- och informationsfrihet, men rådande rättspraxis finner inte att sådana intrång innebär otillåten kränkning, men verkar däremot inte helt prekludera denna möjlighet.The video game poses a challenge in terms of copyright protection due to the complexity and novelty of its nature, in essence being comprised of multiple copyrightable elements, resulting in jurisdictionally diverse legal classification and harmonisation within the EU is not yet achieved. As the varying options of copyright classification of video game affects the applicability of EU anti-circumvention law, and thus, the evaluation of digital rights management-systems, which is an important part of this thesis, clarification was called for. It was found that there are indications that a video game should not be considered a mere computer program, but rather a complex amalgamation of intellectual works. The rapid technological development has made it comparably easy to gain unauthorised access to and use of copyrighted content, resulting in a growing illegal consumption of video games. To counter this, right holders implement digital rights management-systems (DRM-systems) to protect and manage their exclusive rights through restricting or preventing unauthorised access and use. Of tools used, technological protection measures (TPMs) in particular are from a lawful end-user perspective perceived as over-restrictive, complicating and limiting the access and the use of the video game, including acts that do not require right holder authorisation. In light of this, the impact of implemented DRM-systems, TPMs in particular, on illegal consumption and end-user’s attitudes is illustrated and the de facto effectiveness of TPMs evaluated. It is argued that TPMs are not truly effective in preventing illegal consumption – indeed some scholars suggest that TPMs might even increase the magnitude of copyright infringement following increasing levels of discontent within the video gaming community. Another aspect to the implementation of DRM-systems, specifically TPMs, is the potential conflict created as the right holder’s fundamental right of property is pitted against the end-user’s fundamental right of freedom of expression and information. This called for the application of a fundamental rights perspective, investigating whether TPMs may be interfering with end-users fundamental rights and, if so, whether it is considered a violation or not. It is shown that TPMs can interfere with the right of freedom of expression and information, but so far relevant case law implies that such interference is not considered a violation, in part due to the wide margin of appreciation awarded EU Member States. However, current case law does not seem entirely preclude that as a possible future outcome. In conclusion, TPMs does not only inconvenience lawful end-users whilst being de facto ineffective in preventing illegal consumption of video games, but TPMs also interferes with end-user fundamental rights, although violation has not been confirmed. It is thus proposed that TPMs in their current format may not be the preferred solution to counter video game piracy and ensure right holder exclusive rights