Internet piracy is the unlawful reproduction and/or distribution of any copyrighted digital file that can change hands over the Internet. This can be done with music files, videos and movies, e-books, software, and other materials. The laws of different countries vary slightly as far as MP3 files are concerned. In Canada and some Europe countries, it’s legal to download copied music files for personal use, whereas it is illegal in the United States. Copies of movies obtained through Internet piracy are illegal in most Western countries, however. One way that consumers can avoid unintentionally purchasing counterfeit or pirated software is to do so at a retail location or from a website they know they can trust, such as the one run by the software publisher. In these cases, the software will almost always come with a certificate of authenticity. It will also be easy to contact the publisher in the event of any problems in shipping or the operation of the software.
“A 2012 research report by Ofcom showed that from May 2012 to May 2013 one-third of all consumers who viewed movies online infringed the copyright to the film at least once, while 26 per cent of music consumers illegally accessed music online”.
Survey taken place between March and April 2015 shown that thera is 25% of infrigenment of copyrights in area of movies and 26% in music. It is slow decrease in area of movies. These number are smaller in compare with Australia where is 48% in movies and 37% in music.
The reasons given for infringement do not appear to have changed significantly over time: “it is free” (49%); “it is convenient” (43%) and “it is quick” (37%). The most common motives to reduce infringement include cheaper legal alternatives and better availability of these. There is also a desire for it to be clearer what is legal and what is not, although the proportion citing this motivation to reduce infringement has fallen significantly over time.
Back in 2012, New York Times writer Nick Bilton said that “Internet pirates will always win,” suggesting that they develop evasive techniques at a faster rate than the measures to stop them, which isn’t necessarily true.
STOPPING online piracy is like playing the world’s largest game of Whac-A-Mole.
“Piracy won’t go away,” said Ernesto Van Der Sar, editor of Torrent Freak, a site that reports on copyright and piracy news. “They’ve tried for years and they’ll keep on trying, but it won’t go away.” Mr. Van Der Sar said companies should stop trying to fight piracy and start experimenting with new ways to distribute content that is inevitably going to be pirated anyway.
“There’s a clearly established relationship between the legal availability of material online and copyright infringement; it’s an inverse relationship,” said Holmes Wilson, co-director of Fight for the Future, a nonprofit technology organization that is trying to stop new piracy laws from disrupting the Internet. “The most downloaded television shows on the Pirate Bay are the ones that are not legally available online.”
JustWatch’s research found that, a year on, the top 20 torrent web sites across the US, Britain, Germany, Poland, Brazil and Russia became less visible in search results, causing internet traffic to them to dive. However, it found that illicit streaming sites were still enjoying a high ranking in Google’s search results. Carnegie Mellon economist Michael Smith brought a good example to the table. According to him, when NBC took down shows from Hulu, piracy shot up, and no one bought an original copy of the shows that were removed. It’s no exaggeration — Google receives a whopping 65 million DMCA takedown notices on a monthly basis to remove “pirate” pages, and when the numbers are crunched, they total to about 2 million a day or 1,500 per minute.
The UK Intellectual Property Office is investigating how search engines and social media networks can step up their game to deter piracy.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, offers a free tool to the movie studios and television networks called Content ID. When a studio legitimately uploads a clip from a copyrighted film to YouTube, the Google tool automatically finds and blocks copies of the product.
To get around this roadblock, some YouTube users started placing copyrighted videos inside a still photo of a cat that appears to be watching an old JVC television set. The Content ID algorithm has a difficult time seeing that the video is violating any copyright rules; it just sees a cat watching TV.
Mr. Wilson believes that the big media companies don’t really want to solve the piracy problem. “If every TV show was offered at a fair price to everyone in the world, there would definitely be much less copyright infringement,” he said. “But because of the monopoly power of the cable companies and content creators, they might actually make less money.”
The government of the United States, but not private parties, can use the injunction to compel Internet service providers to redirect traffic by not translating a Web address into the numerical language that computers understand. And they could force search engines to stop linking to them.
In the Uk, it is an obligation to provide copyright infringement lists to copyright owners. An internet service provider must provide a copyright owner with a copyright infringement list for a period if the owner requests the list for that period; and an initial obligations code requires the internet service provider to provide it. “copyright infringement list” is a list that sets out, in relation to each relevant subscriber, which of the copyright infringement reports made by the owner to the provider relate to the subscriber, but does not enable any subscriber to be identified.
It is an obligations to limit internet access. The Secretary of State may direct OFCOM (the communications regulator in the United Kingdom) to assess whether one or more technical obligations should be imposed on internet service providers; take steps to prepare for the obligations; provide a report on the assessment or steps to the Secretary of State. A “technical obligation”, in relation to an internet service provider, is an obligation for the provider to take a technical measure against some or all relevant subscribers to its service for the purpose of preventing or reducing infringement of copyright by means of the internet. A “technical measure” is a measure that limits the speed or other capacity of the service provided to a subscriber; prevents a subscriber from using the service to gain access to particular material, or limits such use; suspends the service provided to a subscriber; or limits the service provided to a subscriber in another way. It may be good to limit internet access and slow down internet speed but people can found another internet provider or changer their IP address. It will be useful to make blacklist IP address that has infringemented copyrights for Internet providers company although usally people who infringements the copyright the most has very good IT skills.
The United Kingdom is binding by Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works; Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations; World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT); WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT); Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). As a still member of European Union is binding by directives and regulations in area of intellectual property.
People downloading illegal music and movies from internet and infringement The WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty. This Treaty came into effect on 14th March 2010 in the United Kingdom.
It deals with the rights of two kinds of beneficiaries, particularly in the digital environment: performers and producers of phonograms. the Treaty grants performers economic rights in their performances fixed in phonograms (not in audiovisual fixations, such as motion pictures): (i) the right of reproduction; (ii) the right of distribution; (iii) the right of rental; and (iv) the right of making available.
If a court decides that someone has infringed copyright, then the court can award the following against the infringer:
An injunction is a Court order requiring a person to do an act or prohibiting them from doing an act. Normally in a copyright infringement claim the copyright owner will seek an injunction restraining any further copyright infringement. Normally the obtaining of an injunction in a copyright infringement case is a 2 stage process, which begins with the “Claimant” applying for an interim injunction. An interim injunction prohibits the “Defendant” from carrying out any further copyright infringement pending the trial of the matter. In cases of urgency or where there is a likelihood that the Defendant will hide or destroy evidence of the copyright infringement the Court may grant an interim injunction without the Defendant having notice of the application. But if defendant win the case would he claim the damages. Where there is no likelihood of a repetition of copyright infringement, the Court may grant a declaration that there has been a copyright infringement instead of an injunction.
The starting point for copyright infringement damages is normally the licence fee that would have been agreed assuming the parties were willing to negotiate. This is known as the “user principle”. This notion is used where a willing licensor and licensee is assumed to create a hypothetical situation for the purposes of establishing what a license fee could potentially have been.
course of a business, or has in his possession, custody or control an article specifically designed or adapted for making copies of a particular copyright work, knowing or having reason to believe that it has been or is to be used to make infringing copies, the owner of the copyright in the work may apply to the court for an order that the infringing copy or article be delivered up to him or to such other person as the court may direct.
Where infringing material is being sold or hired out the copyright owner has the right to seize the infringing material or authorise another person to seize it on his behalf if the following conditions are met: notice of the time and place of the proposed seizure must be given to a local police station; at the time when anything is seized there must be left at the place where it was seized a notice in the prescribed form setting out details of the person by whom or on whose authority the seizure is made and the grounds on which it is made.
There are some exception that does not mean infringement of copyrights:
The Copyright and Rights in Performances (Personal Copies for Private Use) Regulations 2014 introduces a new section 28B to the CDPA. This will allow an individual to copy a work (except a computer program) provided that the copy is the person’s own copy of a work which was lawfully purchased or downloaded on a permanent basis (therefore excluding borrowed, rented, broadcast or streamed works). This applies equally to copies of copies, providing the copy in question is made from a lawful personal copy of the work. Importantly, such copying may only be for private use and not for essentially commercial purposes. This exception is intended to bring the law in line with the actual use that consumers make of digital media and allow people to make private copies for format shifting (e.g. uploading music CD contents to home computers as MP3 files), making back-up copies (e.g. saving DVD films onto a computer hard drive) or electronic storage purposes (including ‘cloud’ storage).
Minor infringements copyright is only infringed if the unauthorised use involves the whole or a ‘substantial part’ of the copyright work. However even small parts of a copyright work may count as a substantial part. What is or is not a substantial part is assessed on the basis of quality rather than quantity. The question is therefore whether the level of skill and effort invested in producing the relevant part of the work is substantial rather than whether the relevant part constitutes a substantial portion of the whole work. There is no copyright infringement where a person makes a temporary copy of a copyright work as an integral and essential part of a technological process, the sole purpose of which is to enable transmission of the work in a network or a lawful use of the work and which has no independent economic significance. This exception does not apply to computer programs or databases. Fair dealing means that is no copyright infringement when the use is fair and is for one of a list of specified purposes for example non-commercial research or private study). Criticism, review or quotation is allowed for any type of copyright work for criticism. This exception is an application of freedom of speech. There is no copyright infringement if copyright work is incidentally included in an artistic work, sound recording, film or broadcast (so-called ‘passing shot’ use). However if music is deliberately included in a work (e.g. playing on a radio included in a scene in a film) its inclusion cannot be said to be incidental.
There is no copyright infringement in a case of educational use. Various exceptions apply to libraries and archives provided they are recognised by statutory instrument. There is also no copyright infringement where copyright work is used for administrative purposes, for example as part of judicial proceedings. Works permanently situated in public places – for example, there will be no copyright infringement where sculptures, works of artistic craftsmanship, buildings etc. are photographed. In certain circumstances it is a defence in a copyright claim to show that the publication or use of the copyright material is in the public interest, for example where the material is injurious to public life, public health and safety or the administration of justice.
There are 2 exceptions to copyright for the benefit of disabled people. These exceptions cover you if you have a physical or mental impairment which prevents you from accessing copyright protected materials. One exception allows you, or someone acting on your behalf, to make a copy of a lawfully obtained copyright work if you make it in a format that helps you access the material. The second exception permits educational establishments and charity organisations to make accessible format-copies of protected works on behalf of disabled people. However, this exception does not apply when suitable accessible copies are commercially available. There is an exception to copyright that permits people to use limited amounts of copyright material without the owner’s permission for the purpose of parody, caricature or pastiche. This exception is being used in entertainment industry but it must be said that the author has a right to protection against derogatory disposal. Person who make this act should be aware of this.
Use of copyright material is now permitted for the purpose of “caricature, parody or pastiche”, under a new section 30A CDPA. Again, any such use will have to be “fair dealing” to benefit from the exception. While the legislation does not attempt to further define caricature, parody or pastiche, the CJEU has very recently provided some helpful guidance as to the meaning of “parody”. In Deckmyn v Vandersteen (C-201/13), the CJEU ruled that the only essential characteristics of a parody are:to evoke an existing work while being noticeably different from it; and to constitute an expression of humour or mockery.
These exceptions are the result of transposition of the Directive 2001/29/ES, which enumerate exeption states can adopt. Some European countries have adopted an exception for use of the work within the official religious or holidays ceremonial while the UK have not. This can be very restrictive for people living in the UK because in the UK is a lot different culture and religion.
Nevertheless there is an exception of recordings of folksongs. The Copyright and Rights in Performances (Research, Education, Libraries and Archives) Regulations 2014 make changes to section 61 (recordings of folksongs). Folksongs had already been the subject of special rules under the CDPA, to facilitate the preservation of cultural heritage, but only in respect of government-designated bodies. The new regulations amplify the exception and extend it to any archive maintained by a body not established or conducted for profit. This exception allows charities and not-for-profit bodies to make a sound recording of a song’s performance – say, a live performance at a folk festival or in a town hall – for archival purposes, where the words are unpublished and of unknown authorship (i.e. of folk origin). This will not infringe either the lyrics or the music, providing it is also not prohibited by any performer and the recording does not infringe any other copyright.
The United Kingdom as a still member of European Union is bound by decision of The Court of Justice EU. In the case Tobias McFadden vs Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH
the Court hold that providers generally cannot be held liable if a user uses a provider’s free Wi-Fi connection to unlawfully download copyrighted content. Therefore a copyright holder is not entitled to claim compensation from the provider on the grounds that the network was used by third parties to infringe its rights. Nevertheless, the court drew some limits, saying that copyright holders have the right to seek injunctions to stop future infringements. Such injunction orders, however, would need to balance the intellectual property rights of right holders and the freedom to conduct a business of access providers and the freedom of information of the network users. The court held that an order that such service provider protects its Wi-Fi with a password, requiring users to reveal their identity in order to obtain the required password, in order to end or prevent further infringements by its customers would ensure such balance. It is not so difficult to find an IP address for internet provider that should reveal it in case of criminal process. It will be nonses if Wi-fi provider must control enormous amount of user. That is almost impossible, however it may be said that if is Wi-fi protected by password, the provider can be an accomplice. It supplied tool and get permission for that use.
The remix culture raises important challenges. The national copyright laws of most countries around the world do not effectively address these challenges, and leave many important questions unanswered.
In the United Kingdom, creating your own version of someone else’s work, including editing or remixing is referred to as a derivative work. the materials you want to edit are in the public domain, you need to seek permission from the copyright holder first in order to avoid infringement claims.
In compare with USA, where a district court ruled that copyright owners do not have the right to simply take down content before undertaking a legal analysis to determine whether the remixed work could fall under fair use, a concept in US copyright law which permits limited use of copyrighted material without the need to obtain the right holder’s permission. Remix usually contains numbers of different songs but not whole just a part of them and it is a new piece of work. It may be said that it is a minor infrigements copyright that is exception from infrigament. The problem of different application in UK and USA may be in artist and the way how they look at. It one way person who make remix does need a permission but on the other hand it is a free commercial for singer or person who composes the music.
In the UK is a number or organizations which try to protect intellectual property and reveal infringement. Probably, the most important is the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). It is the UK’s leading trade organisation established to protect and represent the interests of its members’ Intellectual Property (IP). Established in 1983, FACT works closely with statutory law enforcement agencies to combat all forms of piracy and members include global and UK film distributors, TV broadcasters and sport rights owners. Organisation helps reveal a numbers of cases of infrigenment for example when Five members of an underground piracy group that wanted to be the first to release the latest blockbusters on the web have been jailed for more than 17 years. The five men, who went under several online aliases’, formed integral parts of online communities of internet users who, amongst other things, seek recognition for being the first to illegally source and release the latest films or for producing the ‘best’ illegal quality copies. Over a number of years the groups illegally released online more than 2,500 films including Argo, the Avengers and Skyfall. The majority of the leaked films were of reasonably high quality and were either currently showing at cinemas or awaiting release on video. The group often paid for illegal recording of films in cinemas, known as ‘cams’, and improved the quality through editing and encoding before releasing online. Their criminal actions are estimated to have cost the industry many millions of pounds. During the sentencing hearing all five men accepted that they had caused total losses in excess of £5 million, each accepting a loss of more than £1 million. This case shows how much money owner lost including tax for state. Kieron Sharp, Director General of the Federation Against Copyright Theft, said: “Today’s sentencing is a great success for FACT as it marks the first time a release group has been criminally prosecuted. They were all aware that they were engaging in criminal activity. Their actions have now cost them their liberty. The result of this case sends out a serious message to anyone engaging in online piracy to think twice or face getting caught, prosecuted and sent to prison.”
According to UK law a person who dealing with articles can be sentenced for 6 months and/or a £50,000 fine and indicmented for 10 years and/or a fine or can be sentenced for 3 months and/or a £5,000 fine or can can be sentenced for 3 months and/or a £5,000 fine and Indicmented for 2 years and/or a fine in a case of a person who infringes copyright in a work by communicating the work to the public in the course of a business, or otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright, commits an offence if he knows or has reason to believe that, by doing so, he is infringing copyright in that work. A person who making, dealing with or using illicit recordings can be sentenced for 6 months and/or a £50,000 fine and indicmented for 10 years and/or a fine. Making, dealing with or using illicit recordings can be sentenced for 6 months and/or a £50,000 fine and indicmented for 2 years and/or a fine. A person who making, dealing with or using illicit recordings can be sentenced for 6 months and/or a £5,000 fine in a case of person commits and offence who without sufficient consent possesses in the course of a business with a view to committing any at infringing the rights conferred by this Chapter; in the course of a business sells or lets for hire, or offers or exposes for sale or hire; a person commits an offence who causes a recording of a performance made without sufficient consent to be shown or played in public or communicated to the public, thereby infringing any of the rights conferred by this Chapter, if he knows or has reason to believe that those rights are thereby infringed.
Government consulted on increasing the maximum term to 10 years. The revised provisions will help protect rights holders, while making the boundaries of the offence clearer, so that everyone understands how the rules should be applied. This proposal fits into a wide range of interventions to tackle online crime; from education through to more punitive measures to bring offenders to justice. The provision of a maximum 10 year sentence sends a clear message to criminals; exploiting others’ intellectual property without their permission is not acceptable. Where serious infringement is conducted online, the law will allow courts to apply sentences that truly reflect the serious nature of the offence using IP specific legislation.
“The Government believes that a maximum sentence of 10 years allows the courts to apply an appropriate sentence to reflect the scale of the offending,” adding that the maximum sentence will only be applied in rare cases.
But the overwhelming majority of the public, 98 percent, reject the proposal arguing that it’s too harsh. “10 years is too high; copyright infringement is not a serious crime,” IPO summarizes. The supporters of the prison term extension, including industry groups BPI, FACT and the MPA, argue that harsher sentences would help to serve as a deterrent, preventing people from pirating copyrighted works.
“The best way to combat piracy isn’t legislatively or criminally but by giving good options,” Ted Sarandos told Stuff magazine.
But strict law does not mean no criminal behavior. It a tool for intimidation. People are claver and always finding the way how to avoid a law. In a case of internet piracy there are many way how to change IP address to address of state where that behavior is legal or law is less strict. If person still changing IP address is difficult to find them.
English copyrights infringement is more specified in case of fine comparing with Slovakia and Czech republic. The sentence is between 6 months and 8 years depending on the seriousness of the offense. Person can be punished by obligatory work for a period of up to 480 hours or by corrective labor for a term of up to one years in Russia. This could be good example how to make English law better because people rather pay fine as they should collect garbage on the street. It could be a motivation how to do not infrigement a copyrights. The only payment that should by sentenced would be remedies for damages. It may be said that sentence of some months can be sufficient detternt. On one side is interst of public which does not no go to jail and if does then for the shortes time because than can continue in infrigemnt and be more carefull, however on the other side is a state who is obliged to protect copiraght owners but it needs working people due to tax public pay. State needs prison for worst crimes. The balance can be in an amout of infrigemnt. For example person infrigemnt copiraght it is being sentenced for 6 months and fine plus demagies, if it infrigement the second time it is being sentenced for 1 year and if it infriement the third time there will be sentence for 5 year.
The key for prevention of infringement copyright is not a treaties that countries are binding or any law but education. People must being teached appreciate someones work, that everything has a price, almost nothing is free and if they want something belong they must pay for. This issue matter of law, economic and ethics.
Currently, most new music appeared on Youtube. Thanks to advertising artists earn big money for a views since before their videos appearing ad or banner ad. Clicks on this ad earn more money for artists. This is the case if the user does not have Adblock or any other ad blocking software. YouTube is free if you do not count the prepaid program, and that is one reason why it is popular. People do not infringe copyright and artists earn. In major markets such as the USA the interpret is able to earn about $ 10 per 1,000 views. People often click more times on these videos. Why YouTube could devise a method that would show the user how much the artist earned from the ads he saw in the video and easily making over a certain amount would not allow him to download a song for free. Both sides will be satisfied. The artist get money and fans can legally and free download song. It will help to reduce amount of illegal downloaded songs. The positive aspect is longer limitation period which is 6 years altoght it could be longer due to innovation that law can not reached. The United Kingdon’s work in the field of Intellectual Property is highly regarded throughout the world. There is more stringet law than other countries including length of the sentence. Many things are forbidden that can be lagal in other countries. The United States Chamber of Commerce stated that “the United Kingdom is now the highest ranked country for Intellectual Property enforcement and a global leader”.