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Chances are, if you have owned a computer, and know how to use that computer rather well, you have ventured in the world of online piracy. It could be as simple as watching a clip from a television show on YouTube. The fact is, someone owns the copyright to that media and you are watching it without their permission or there distributors permission. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, more commonly known as the RIAA, $300 million per year is lost in the music industry alone to people selling homemade CD’s on the street(RIAA). This is nothing however, considering that downloading a song on the internet is much easier to get, and somewhat anonymous people are more willing to download a song than to go find a street bootlegger. As much as $26 billion is lost annually due to online piracy (Wright W03).Piracy has always occurred in humanity in one form or another. We have always stolen content, because, free always beats any low cost. Online piracy continues to cost the media industry billions per year; however the technologies that are caused to progress stealing have been used to further the multimedia experience as a whole.
So how did this piracy thing start anyway? Well it’s been around since the internet itself was developed. After all, the internet was designed to share a wealth of information. Even when I was younger I remember getting text files off IRC. IRC stood for Internet Relay Chat, and was the basis for all communications even before email became widely available. A person could issue what was called a DCC or a direct client connection and send whatever files they may happen to have on their computer. Eventually the internet as a whole grew and individuals began hosting machines online or buying virtual hosting to store files and provided information. There was one downside to using a website to store information however, and that was that it was expensive. Hosting a website or computer online cost a lot in upload bandwidth and the person hosting alone was stuck with the bill. Eventually peer to peer technology was developed. This allowed you to “share” a file by making it available online to be searched and shared. When someone wanted that file, your computer would upload it to them just like how a website did, however, once they download it, they share it as well with everyone. So as a file became more popular, there would be more people to get the file from and essentially the bandwidth bill would be distributed. You may remember these as your Napster, Kazaa, Emule, Limewire and many many others. Most of these have died out, however, because of legal pressure, others have become legitimate business models such as Napster that charges a monthly fee and includes limited ownership rights (Napster). With all of these technologies however, people were going to use it for whatever their evil little minds could come up with.
This is where piracy comes into the picture. Sure, legitimate files were being shared over these networks but mostly illegal files were dominating the scene. Websites started cropping up promoting “warez” which simply originated from the word “software. (Wikipedia Warez)” The “warez” sites were very few due to its extreme illegal nature. Often web hosts would find out what they were hosting and shut it down directly. DCC was and still is available but is not developed for the mainstream audience and many do not even use it because of its complexity. Eventually Peer to Peer was developed which allowed for people to connect directly to others in mass and download files after a quick search. This by far was and still is the easiest method of getting files. BitTorrent was introduced shortly after the collapse of the larger peer to peer software companies in April 2001. BitTorrent was developed by Bram Cohen and introduced a new way to use peer-to-peer. The original peer-to-peer had a large flaw, a user could download the file they wanted, and simply chose to not share it at all. The BitTorrent protocol did something completely different, it made you share the file while it was downloading. Simply put, the file is now broken into tiny pieces, you then download those pieces as others share them, and you share the pieces that you have so people can get those pieces. It’s a large give and take until your file is completed. BitTorrent allowed for more bandwidth to be used as well per clients so large files could be taken almost three times faster. With all these ways to steal, it would make sense to just shut it all down to solve the problem, right?
Nope, these technologies aren’t just used to steal illegally acquired files, large companies are currently using these technologies right now. Over 200 companies are currently investing in peer-to-peer network solutions and over $400 million has been spent. The most common legitimate use is content distribution. Currently video games use peer-to-peer technologies to buy there games online as well as download them quickly without having to leave the house (Wikipedia BitTorrent). Wal-Mart even plans to sell DVD movies online in the near future. If you cant wait for online media, just check out Joost’s current lineup of big brand names. Line ups include CNN, CBS, Nickelodeon, as well as 286 current channels online all for free using the peer-to-peer technology.
So what does all the piracy really explain? It shows that people are beginning to want there media in a different way. People are stealing content because of its convenience and the market is starting to understand that. The rise of companies that sell per song or per show content is on the rise. Companies like iTunes are now selling individual songs and TV shows and millions of downloads have occurred because of this (Torronto Starr). Video On Demand and the concept of a Digital Video Recorder is starting to become the normal way to watch media and oddly enough its piracy’s fault. Now you can get cable from your local cable company and they give you similar services for free. Local cable company InSight Communications has there ON DEMAND service which allows you to watch entire free shows as well as pay per view videos with the ability to “pause, rewind and fast-forward” there shows all in real time (Insight Website). The evolution of the media as a whole is starting to change to a all digital platform, it’s going to be interesting to see what will happen in the future.
Works Cited
“BitTorrent”. Wikipedia. 05 Oct. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent>.
“Insight Products :: Digital Cable - On Demand TV”. Insight. 05 Oct. 2007 <http://www.insight-com.com/Cable-4596.htm>.
“Joost - Knowledge base”. Joost. 05 Oct. 2007 <http://www.joost.com/support/faq/>.
“Napster Website Terms”. Napster. 05 Oct. 2007 <http://free.napster.com/terms/>.
“Piracy Online”. RIAA. 05 Oct. 2007 <http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_details_online>.
Raju Mudhar. “Hit TV shows leaping out of the box.” Toronto Star (Canada) (n.d.). Newspaper Source. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 8 October 2007. <http://search.ebscohost.com.er.llcc.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nfh&AN=6FP4082465105&site=ehost-live>.
“Warez”. Wikipedia. 05 Oct. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez>.
Wright, Bob. “Pirates bleed us dry”. WORLD IN FOCUS 18 Nov. 2006: W03.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:12 am
[...] Original post by KrAzE [...]
August 31st, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Good post. I always feel bad when I hear about college students being sued for piracy and having to pay at least $3,000. I recently read about someone going through that who hadn’t done anything, but his account was mixed up with someone else’s at his university. Yuck!
September 1st, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Wow you actually read this? :O