Digital Piracy as Main Crime of 21st-Century

Humans have been performing illegal activities for years. With today’s 21st-century society being technology, illegal activity within the technological/internet-based realm is a major occurrence. Digital piracy is the illegal trade in software, videos, digital video devices, and music. Piracy occurs when someone other than the copyright holder copies the product and resells it for a fraction of the cost that the legitimate producer charges. It is a serious problem in many countries outside the United States, particularly China. Digital piracy received its first major recognition the beginning of the 21st-century.

Napster was pioneer in peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing, operating from 1999 to 2001. In its initial years, Napster was not illegal; due to the fact that the concept was so new that there weren’t any laws in place to deem the program illegal, consequently, several individuals who would otherwise avoid illegal actions utilized Napster because it was legal. This large amount of people grew a liking to the obtaining of free music. At its pinnacle, Napster had more than 25 million clients and 80 million songs. Despite thus huge load of consumers, the Napster system never once crashed. In October of 2000, it had been estimated that there about 800,000 users using it at a single time. On December 8th, 1999, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) announced that it would be suing Napster for violating copyright laws. The RIAA could not accuse Napster for direct infringement since Napster did not make copies of the songs; instead Napster was charged with contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. In other words, Napster was making it possible for consumers to violate copyright laws.

Also, various high-profile artist filed lawsuits against Napster when it would not remove the copyrighted material. By the time Napster was shut down, the damage had already been done. Those same Napster users moved to other file-sharing services such as BitTorrent and Limewire, which are both still popular today. Even though digital piracy is considered illegal, there are some pros for the video industry. Most video industries use data collected from these digital pirating programs to determine what consumers like to watch. For example, a Netflix team used data from pirating programs in the Netherlands in their decision to add Prison Break to its roster. A popular method for consumers to get their content is through BitTorrent. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, such as digital video files containing TV shows or video clips or digital audio files containing songs.

Similar to Napster, BitTorrent also use a P2P network. As a college student with no stable form of income and college tuition to pay, I do not have the funds to buy music subscriptions such as Apple Music or Spotify nor do I have the find to go out and see the latest movies. I am firm believer in the digital piracy system, I have been using third-party applications such as Playbox or Showbox to stream free movies and tv shows for years; I even have a jailbroken Amazon Firestick which has Kodi, a free and open-sourced media player software application, installed. As an avid music listener who doesn’t have the budget for music streaming service subscriptions, I download free hacked versions of the apps.

I am currently using an app called Spotify++, essentially it is the full Spotify Premium but without the fee of $10/Month. I understand that through piracy we are basically taking money from hardworking individuals who have spent time perfecting their craft. Honestly, as I further my college career and reach a point where I have consistent monetary income, I see myself accessing these intellectual properties legally.