What Is Internet Piracy? (Part II)

Hello, it's Fred!  I hope you're having a spooktacular Hallowe'en.  Are you donning a costume to go a-haunting in your local neighborhood?  Perhaps you're going as a witch?  Or a Santa Claus?  Or a PIRATE??  Or perhaps....all three?

Ahoy ho ho ho!

In keeping with our theme of Internet piracy: what are some ways that Internet piracy can occur?  With what specific Internet technologies is it accomplished?

Why do people pirate things?  Well, there are many different reasons.  Perhaps they simply don't wish to pay the full price for something, or perhaps they want an item that is difficult to find on the "white market".  In fact, Internet piracy doesn't even have to be intentional; you don't necessarily have to know that something was pirated illegally in order to download it illegally.  This issue of intention in piracy will be discussed in later posts; I'm interested to explore the social, cultural, and psychological motivations for piracy in a bit more depth.


The motives for procuring something illegally are manifold and varied; therefore, there are many different ways of obtaining pirated material.  One of the oldest and (still) most common ways of distributing pirated material is through peer-to-peer networks (P2P).  A modern spin on this that improves on the technology used is torrenting.  It's also possible to purchase CDs, DVDs, or other physical products on websites such as Craigslist or eBay that were illegally produced or copied.  These are just a few of the ways that Internet users can purchase pirated material.   Again, I hope to explore many of these methods in greater depth in later posts.

These first two posts have served as a rough introduction to the intent of this blog.  I hope you have a better sense now of where we're going.  I can't promise we'll be able to address all of these many potential topics, but I hope you'll come along for the ride!  See you next time!

What is Internet piracy? (Part I)

Hello, it's me, Fred!  I thought it'd be nice to start our discussion of Internet piracy with a definition.  What exactly is Internet piracy?

Is this piracy?  It could be, if you take this image from my blog without asking!

Simply put, the word "piracy" means theft.  When applied to the Internet, it refers to a practice called copyright infringement.  This is defined by the U.S. Copyright Office as using any copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright owner.  That's pretty far-reaching, and if you think about it a bit, you might be surprised at the many places you may have accidentally infringed on a copyright!

The word "infringement" sounds passive and a little vague.  You might think that it's not a big deal or that copyright laws are somewhat abstract and lenient.  However, the law views copyright infringement as the forceful theft of another person's property.  Sounds an awful lot like a pirate!  ARRGH!

It might surprise you to learn that copyrights are quite old, dating back to 1710 with the British Statute of Anne.  (Check out this site for more info!)  Copyright law in the U.S. was enacted in 1790, although it has continuously evolved to accommodate both new forms of technology and copyrightable materials.  These days, its possible to copyright anything from recordings to architecture to pantomime––anything and everything that constitutes "original works of authorship".

That's one reason Internet copyright infringement is such a divisive issue.  Never before in human (or sauropodian) history has a communication tool as powerful as the Internet developed so rapidly within such a short period of time.  Should the Internet change the way we view intellectual property?  Is it impossible for it not to?  These are the kind of questions we'll be asking in the next few posts.  See you next time!

Hello, world!

Hello!  I'm a dinosaur whose name is Fred.  I hope you enjoy my blog!  I think it's pretty good, for an extinct species.  It's about Internet piracy, because I, as a dinosaur, am quite interested in this uniquely mammalian issue.

The Internet struggles constantly torn between a capitalist, profit-driven mindset and a decentralized, free-exchange-based structure.  Nowhere is this antagonism displayed more plainly than in the ongoing debate over Internet piracy.  Should media be free to share between all, or should profits and capital gain drive and motivate the distribution of media?  Are artists hurt by illegal downloading?  What kind of opinions or perceptions do people have about internet piracy?  I hope to touch on some or all of these questions over the course of my blog, before its untimely extinction by meteor.