TL;DR: The world of piracy has never had a more prominent place or played a bigger role in the technology universe than it does today. I have interviewed an anonymous (for safety reasons) colleague of mine about their experiences in this topic.

As our world changes more and more each day with the advancement of technology, people are adapting to make use of it for their own good. Specifically, piracy has taken the stage as a way that regular people can take advantage of the Internet in an advantageous, however illegal, way. By downloading or copying certain copyrighted material such as movies, music, or other forms of software, the question arises of how this can affect the consumer as well as the owner. This form of theft has continued to grow in part because it has been very hard for law enforcement to track and the penalties are not that harsh in most cases. I have interviewed an anonymous colleague of mine who has the Internet and computer experience to be knowledgeable about this topic in order to gather his thoughts.

1) What does the word “piracy” mean to you?

Piracy to me refers to obtaining digital content for free through illicit means that circumvent copyright laws. Also, the stuff that Jack Sparrow does.

2) What kind of effect do you think piracy has on the consumer?

Depends on whether we are discussing a paying consumer or the pirating consumer. If we’re discussing the paying consumer, the content creator can certainly raise prices by using “lost sales” due to piracy as justification. There is also the possibility in extreme cases that the content creator may stop creating new works because it is no longer financially possible due to overwhelming piracy, so the consumer loses a source of content that they enjoy. But those are extreme cases. With respect to the pirating consumer, certain they run the risk of legal action taken against them, plus in some cases they’re also wasting time because the content can be found for free or somewhat cheap elsewhere.

3) Likewise, what kind of effect do you think piracy has on the creator, or the one who’s work is being stolen or copied?

As noted in the previous question, in extreme cases the creator may completely cease to create new works if it no longer becomes financially possible. The lost sales part is up for debate – some people pirate because they can, and wouldn’t purchase the content if it were available at low cost. They also have to initiate legal action to keep the piracy problem from getting out of control.

4) What differences do you think there are between movie and music piracy?

Ten years ago, music piracy could be justified in part by saying that the pirating consumer wanted to obtain a sample to ensure that the full work was worth purchasing. Now with essentially any song available on YouTube, that argument no longer holds sway. I can see a similar argument being made for movies, pirating to sample to ensure quality before buying, but you would need to pirate the entire movie file in that case rather than individual songs, so you lose the necessity of obtaining the rest after getting a portion free. Today, an argument can be made that piracy for movies and TV shows is necessary because content creators (and those who hold the rights to works for content creators) don’t make them easily available by legal means. For example, I’m a huge Star Trek fan, but I have no plans to subscribe to CBS All-Access to be able to watch the new series; I’ll pirate instead.

5) Although not a huge topic that is discussed, there is also the possibility of textbook piracy in which students can gain free access to textbooks and/or answers. Do you think this is a problem or do you think it is just beneficial to students in their thirst for knowledge?

As someone who still has to buy textbooks, I feel that their prices are outrageous and getting worse. I encourage students to chip in and share a book with their classmates, and try to ensure that previous versions of the book are usable in the course. So I definitely fall on the side of the thirst for knowledge outweighing the price charged by the content creator (or their rights holder in the case of many companies).

6) What are your experiences with piracy firsthand (if you have any)?

Shhhhhhh, I used to pirate a lot (but do it substantially less often now). As I mentioned in question four, I’ll still likely do it again. In some cases, it’s just the only way.

7) Do you think that piracy is worth the risk of possible legal consequences and/or viruses it can cause on your devices?

The legal consequences are rather weak and overblown. I honestly can’t remember the last time I read a story about someone being charged/fined because of piracy (speaking of consumer piracy here, not The Pirate Bay creators). The risk of viruses is easily mitigated with careful selection of sources and good antivirus software. In my eyes, both the legal consequences and viruses aren’t particularly strong concerns.

8) What do you think people who rely on piracy in order for certain material can turn to as an alternative?

Today, Netflix/Hulu are pretty good at distributing a broad variety of content, but are still imperfect and can’t supply everything. Five years ago before those took off, the only alternative was to wait for the DVD and pay for those. Same argument goes for YouTube/Spotify for music.

9) What do you think law enforcement can do to better monitor piracy situations?

Honestly, not much without changing the laws (both with respect to monitoring abilities and what justifies the crime) to enable easier enforcement.

10) Past research has indicated that men commit more property crimes and violent offenses than women (Greenfield & Snell, 2000). A sex difference has also been reported in software piracy (Hagan & Kay, 1990; Hollinger, 1993). Hollinger reported that for every woman, three men are likely to engage in software piracy. Why do you think that this is?

Entirely speculation here, but since computer science is a male-dominated field, I would think that those who are more comfortable with the technology side of piracy and hence more likely to pirate are also male.

As you can see, my interviewee definitely favors more towards the side of pro-piracy. I agree with most of his stances as it pertains to the consumer, however I think that he might be overlooking how this can effect the owner of the material. These people are losing valuable revenue or even privacy by having their material stolen or copied. In addition, I think that there should be some sort of reform to the laws that pertain to piracy. My colleague brought up that the problem is that law enforcement is somewhat limited in their enforcement of piracy laws, so I think that a strong change should be in order. The world of piracy may be the easy way for the average person on their computer, but I think we need to take a strong look at how it can affect the corresponding industries.

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