The Future of Digital Piracy

The future of digital piracy is unclear at this point. It is a very volatile topic as new laws and regulations are constantly being passed. There are groups in support of file-sharing pushing for relaxed laws and easier methods of sharing files among peers to make music and movies more affordable for all. On the other hand, groups such as MPAA and RIAA are pushing for stricter laws and more reforms to make their respective industries more profitable. The Stop Online Piracy Act has already made one attempt to become a law and more than likely there will be more attempts to get at least some of the provisions of the bill passed into law. This would really change the game of digital piracy as it would be more difficult than ever to download illegal content due to sites such as The Pirate Bay being blocked by ISPs. Barring new laws though, digital piracy will more than likely continue to grow especially as we advance our technologies. There will be obstacles to growth, such as Dropbox's ability to prevent copyrighted material from being shared, but there are always ways around such systems, such as encryption. No matter what happens in the world, I believe there will always be ways to download music and movies for free. 

                This is not to say, however, that digital piracy doesn’t cost movie producers and musicians millions of dollars per year, because it does. It does however seem like fighting digital piracy is like trying to bail water out of a sinking ship. There are other ways for artists to earn money other than simply selling music. There are free music websites such as Pandora and subscription sites such as Spotify where people can listen to music for free (or a small fee) and do so within the law.  I also think there will be a big movement in websites that offer free downloads of movies and music but charge advertisers fees for keeping the websites operational. Musicians can also earn money through sponsorships and other types of branding and those revenue streams may be supported due to the availability of free music. Rap artists have done a good job of utilizing this strategy through the release of mix tapes.

                One thing digital piracy has changed however is how records are rated as far as platinum, double platinum, etc . It is now next to impossible to track how many times a record has been listened to. Before it was simple, the number of times a record is purchased could be tracked. But now, for every time an album is purchased it could be spread all over the internet which makes it much more difficult to track the number of downloads a record has. I think file sharing will have to be decriminalized in some way if we are to ever have a similar system for measuring music success like we have had in the past. What was once a very accurate measure is now always subject to interpretation. Which is why one of the next steps in file sharing will be to count the number of times a file is shared, as well as downloaded, which will de facto decriminalize the file sharing of albums.

The Costs in Pirating

I'm sure most of you all have heard of the trending HBO series Game of Thrones. We came across a recent article that discussed how Game of Thrones season 4 premiere will become the most pirated TV episode in the world. The episode was downloaded around 1 million times within the first 12 hours of the US airing. Now why is it that so many people have chosen to illegally download the show? Maybe it is because the price of watching shows legally is getting too expensive. Also obtaining pirated movies, shows and music via the internet is extremely convenient. As we shared in a previous post, pirating is not as bad as the entertainment industry wants you to believe, in fact it may actually be helping the industry.

The price of watching Game of Thrones legally is a major concern for most of its viewers. Price varies greatly from country to country. Although plenty of shows eventually end up on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime, GOT is only offered through an HBO subscription or by waiting months for it to come out on DVD/Blu-ray. So lets look at the cost of an HBO subscription. In the US, HBO can cost from $15-$25 a month, but that does not include the initial cost of cable/internet which brings the total average cost to about $100 a month give or take. When you think about it, thats around $1200 a year that most people choose not to pay, with the increase in popularity of Netflix that only costs $8 a month. In other countries such as Australia, the cheapest HBO subscription is about $70 a month not including the price of internet/cable. In the UK it costs about $35 a month for HBO and in Canada it costs about $18 which is a deal compared to other countries, but other factors must be included like the cost of a TV subscription.

With how popular shows like Game of Thrones has become around the world and the ease of access of the internet, it's no wonder fans would rather illegally download the episodes rather than paying the ridiculous price of an HBO subscription on top of already having to pay for internet/cable.

In comparison to Game of Thrones by HBO, Netflix also has two very prominent shows that are coveted by fans, House of Cards and Orange is the New Black (which are currently only aired on Netflix). In the eyes of customers, having a "Netflix Original Series" makes their minds believe that Netflix is an equal to HBO as a television network, not an internet based site. Which is exactly what the company is trying to accomplish.  These shows are also pirated online daily by customers who too do not want to pay the price of a subscription.

Like mentioned before one has to pay for Netflix if they are wanting to opt out of purchasing HBO or pirating entertainment illegally. Although, Netflix does not update their content regularly, meaning every time a new episode airs or a new movie is released to DVD it does not automatically appear in the Netflix browser.  This is due to how much it cost Netflix as a company to purchase content rights to be allowed to stream the entertainment desired by its customers. This is the time when customers begin to look for other routes that will quench their thirst. We as a blog are not condoning pirating by any means as it is illegal, but we do understand where the temptation can seduce a person yearning for their favorite song, movie or show. Some people simply do not have the funds or means to satisfy their wants, and with this being said people in our society and communities look for other ways to ease their minds, and pirating seems to be the easiest solution for most.

Source: Why Game of Thrones is the most pirated TV show in the World

Dropbox Controversy

Dear readers, new information has come to light over the weekend that is big news to people in the data piracy world.  Last weekend, it was discovered that Dropbox has the ability to recognize and prevent you from sharing copyrighted content using the program. Basically this software can prevent piracy. There are concerns in the data piracy world that Dropbox could “sell out” and turn information of users that are sharing copyrighted material over to the federal government. Dropbox uses a system called “hashing” to screen material uploaded before it is shared. Dropbox can use hashing to identify similar programs, and in the case of copyrighted material, identical programs and marks them as a match or not as a match. Dropbox makes a list of copyrighted programs that are not to be shared. It gets this list from companies such as Disney or Universal Music and whenever these companies send Dropbox copyright information, this information is added to Dropbox’s list of “do not share” programs per the company’s requests. So when a user uploads a copyrighted program, Dropbox checks the hashing of the program against a list of its known to be copyrighted hashes before they are able to be shared publicly.

This may raise concerns among Dropbox users about the privacy of their personal files and data. Dropbox stresses that the entire process is automated and they do not look at user’s files but rather just the hashes in the coding of their files. Also, Dropbox stresses that hashes are only checked when you attempt to share your files and you may upload whatever you want including copyrighted material as long as you are using them for personal use only. There are ways to get around being blocked on Dropbox however, you can use the simple method of encrypting your files before uploading them using a tool such as Boxcryptor or you may simply zip them up using 7-zip.

The concerns of Dropbox selling out to the United States federal government are most likely false because it is widely believed that Dropbox would fight such a request from the federal government. Dropbox’s best interest is to keep their user’s data secure and out of the hands of the United States government because a lack of trust would translate into people straying away from Dropbox and finding other companies because of a bad reputation. We here at Pirates of the Cyber-sea believe that you will be safe using Dropbox’s services regardless of these recent developments.

In conclusion, the United States of America is constantly trying to find new ways to put a stop to digital piracy. People are always discovering new ways to get around all of these different strategies to stop them. The smarter the government gets in putting a stop to this, the smatter the overall community gets as well. It is always interesting to see what new obstacles people get around to illegally download music and movies as well as whatever else it is that they are trying to download and or share.