Internet piracy is not
theft!
Internet piracy can be described as unauthorized online file
sharing, counterfeiting and online hacking to use servers without paying but internet
piracy is technically not theft; it is a crime, but not theft. The more appropriate
or fitting metaphor could be “unauthorized use” or maybe even “trespass”. This
blog essay will, firstly; discuss the misconception of internet piracy for
theft. Secondly, the entertain industry and digital copies will be discussed. Thirdly,
this blog essay will discuss the concession to why internet piracy is not theft
and a refutation. Finally; finish off with the conclusion. Internet piracy is
not theft.
Due to the rise of the technological age; and the
advancement of the World Wide Web, internet piracy was given life and has
started to grow so much that it has become something of a common thing in our
everyday lives. Internet piracy is defined as infringing a piece of work that
is under copyright to someone or a company, trying to distribute, display or
reproduce these exclusive rights without acknowledgement from the copyright
holder is illegal. Theft is one huge misconception of Internet piracy; it has
become a “metaphor” to internet piracy and it is confusing what people think
and what the law is (Larsson as cited by Enersto 2011). Yes, there are laws
against internet piracy but labelling this action as theft can, and will not
work but the entertainment industry have been pushing hard to label it as
stealing.
People from the entertain industry like, for example;
musicians place their work under the copyright law so their work will be
protected from “thieves”. A thief is defined as someone who is caught in the
act of stealing something that did not legally belong to them, but associating
copy right infringements with stealing is incorrect (Green as cited by Couts
2012) . The reason why internet
piracy could never be confirmed as theft is because the musician who had his
music downloaded of the internet has not lost his original work; he still has
it. The downloader only merely makes a copy of his work and copy is a key word
in internet piracy as it shows the difference between stealing and not stealing
in this argument and will likely prove that illegal downloads is not stealing.
Online music and movies are not physical things; they are
something called “digital copies”. This means that they are an online copy of
the original music or movie, so when and online downloader downloads these
files it is important to notice that it is not theft; because as noted before,
he made a copy of the digital copy. This scenario is different to a person
walking into a store and taking a movie DVD out of the store without paying.
Why? Because that DVD is a physical object that the store owns, therefore when
someone was to take the DVD the store when no longer own it, classifying this
as theft Wilson (2013). When comparing these two scenarios, there is one
obvious difference that proves why internet piracy is not theft and that is an
online download will not deprive the creative owner of his original work
because it was only a digital copy. Even though internet piracy is not theft,
it is still considered wrong to many people trying to make a living through
selling their creative work or idea, like for example; musicians, artists,
movie producers and even actors.
The entertainment industry believe that online illegal
downloads is considered as thievery. This is why musicians place copyrights and
intellectual property on their work so the law and everybody else will
acknowledge that this piece of work belongs to the musician. The reason why the
entertainment industry goes this far is because they believe that profit is
lost when an illegal downloader makes a copy of their work, not only that,
counterfeiters make illegal copies and distribute it online so others won’t
have to pay to download James (2013). As of now millions of DVD, music and
video files have been illegally leaked onto the internet and its making it
harder on the original creative owners to make a living because illegal
downloads keep occurring, however labelling internet piracy as theft will not
help make this situation better for the entertainment industry because a lot of
regular downloaders will not accept that illegal downloading is like stealing a
car.
In conclusion it is obvious that labelling internet piracy
as theft is incorrect, however it does not making illegal online file sharing
right. Creative owners work hard for what they accomplish and they certainly
need to be rewarded for their hard work and to make sure they get awarded they
put copyrights and intellectual property on their work. Lastly I do not believe
that illegal downloads are equivalent to stealing a car and that is where I
stand in this argument.
- Couts, A. (2012) Illegal file sharing isn’t “stealing”: here’s why. Retrieved from http://www.digitaltrends.com/music/illegal-file-sharing-isnt-stealing-heres-why/
- Degroote, M. (2012) Digital piracy wrong but not “theft”. Retrieved
- Ernesto (2011) Piracy is NOT theft: Problems of a nonsense metaphor. Retrieved from http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-not-theft-111104/
- Green, S.P. (2012) When stealing isn’t stealing. Retrieved
- James, D.T (2013) Internet Piracy. Retrieved from
- Janda, M (2012) Illegal downloading not theft. Retrieved
- Wilson, M (2013) Piracy isn’t theft… But its effects are wide and far-reaching. Retrieved
