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    Economics of Piracy

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    Siddharth Poonia
    Piracy of digital media like software, movies, and music has increased with the rise of the internet. Some people feel justified pirating because large companies are very profitable, while others see digital property differently than physical property. Piracy is difficult for authorities to detect and prosecute downloaders. Economic analyses show piracy may reduce media company revenues, though it is unclear how many pirates would otherwise purchase the content. Some pirates distribute malware and ransomware along with pirated content, harming users. Studies find piracy rates are highest in emerging economies and among young people like college students.

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    Economics of Piracy

    Uploaded by

    Siddharth Poonia
    66 views2 pages
    Piracy of digital media like software, movies, and music has increased with the rise of the internet. Some people feel justified pirating because large companies are very profitable, while others see digital property differently than physical property. Piracy is difficult for authorities to detect and prosecute downloaders. Economic analyses show piracy may reduce media company revenues, though it is unclear how many pirates would otherwise purchase the content. Some pirates distribute malware and ransomware along with pirated content, harming users. Studies find piracy rates are highest in emerging economies and among young people like college students.

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    My essay on digital Piracy.

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    Piracy of digital media like software, movies, and music has increased with the rise of the internet. Some people feel justified pirating because large companies are very profitable, while others see digital property differently than physical property. Piracy is difficult for authorities to detect and prosecute downloaders. Economic analyses show piracy may reduce media company revenues, though it is unclear how many pirates would otherwise purchase the content. Some pirates distribute malware and ransomware along with pirated content, harming users. Studies find piracy rates are highest in emerging economies and among young people like college students.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    66 views2 pages

    Economics of Piracy

    Uploaded by

    Siddharth Poonia
    Piracy of digital media like software, movies, and music has increased with the rise of the internet. Some people feel justified pirating because large companies are very profitable, while others see digital property differently than physical property. Piracy is difficult for authorities to detect and prosecute downloaders. Economic analyses show piracy may reduce media company revenues, though it is unclear how many pirates would otherwise purchase the content. Some pirates distribute malware and ransomware along with pirated content, harming users. Studies find piracy rates are highest in emerging economies and among young people like college students.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Economics of Piracy

    The evolution of internet since the late twentieth century has basically changed the way
    everything works now. More and more firms and industries are adopting digital
    technologies to distribute their products worldwide. Along with that larger part of the
    population also has access to the internet. Sharing data over the internet is much easier,
    this has led to a lot of piracy of digital software, books and art (music and motion pictures).

    Intellectual Property (IP)- Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as
    inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in
    commerce.

    Why do people pirate?


    Piracy starts from the hackers/bootleggers/’pirates’ who hack into a program to crack it’s
    authenticating measures, or simply share the copy of digital art they own (most
    entertainment is not DRM protected). Then other people get all the ‘pirated’ stuff.
    Some people download pirated stuff simply because they feel the software they want is
    simply too expensive for them to afford. This behavior might seem justified to them like
    this: The software company is enormous and makes billions of dollars. One piece of stolen
    software isn’t going to hurt them. Some people may feel the software is overpriced.
    Research suggests that people see digital property differently than physical property, they
    think taking a copy of a software isn’t hurtful to the owner rather than taking the physical
    copy which is hard to reproduce unlike a digital copy.
    Piracy is hard to catch now and takes way too much effort than the rewards. The authorities
    try to find out the distributers instead of the downloaders now.

    Economics of Piracy
    With music and movie studios claiming large losses in revenues due to online music and
    movie piracy while proponents of free media claim that piracy may have no effect on, or
    even benefit, studios' revenues. Economic theory is ambiguous, as individuals who
    download free illegal copies of media goods may or may not have purchased those goods
    otherwise.
    Some pirates sell the software to other people at cheaper rates, they hack the software to
    make money off of it. These pirates do cost firms money. Lowering the price of their stuff
    might make people buy it instead of pirating but it won’t stop pirates altogether.

    Malicious Pirates
    Spreading malware and ransomware through pirated, masked software is well known
    technique now. Internet users take the bait for free software and risk losing their digital
    data and personal information to pirates through the hidden malware that got installed in
    the background without the user noticing it. Similar to malware, ransomware is a piece of
    code that blocks your access to the computer and demands ransom (most commonly
    through bitcoins) to unlock or give access to the user. A recent example is the WannaCry
    ransomware which affected over 200 thousand systems all over the world. It was recorded
    that almost $70,000-$80,000 worth bitcoins were transferred to their addresses.
    Another malicious technique is baiting users to giver their card details in order to get access
    to “free” movies/tv shows.

    How much is Piracy prevalent today?


    According to a Business Software Alliance (BSA) survey, 39 percent of the software installed
    on the computers in the world in 2016 were not properly licensed and 430 million new
    pieces of malware were discovered in 2015, up 36 percent from 2014.
    An older study from 2011 found that:

     Piracy is most rampant in countries with emerging economies.


     The United states has the largest market for software, spending 42 billion, and the
    lowest piracy rate at 19%.
     The top three countries with the highest piracy rates are Venezuela at 88 percent,
    Indonesia at 86 percent, and China at 77 percent.

    Young adults are the demographic with highest proportion in the pirating population.
    College students watch pirated movies and tv shows all over the country, that is well known.

    References
    1. http://globalstudy.bsa.org/2016/downloads/studies/BSA_GSS_US.pdf
    2. http://globalstudy.bsa.org/2011/
    3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/how-much-does-online-
    piracy-really-cost-the-
    economy/2012/01/05/gIQAXknNdP_blog.html?utm_term=.6a212cdbce0e
    4. http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/software-piracy-study-bsa_n_1563006

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