Should Companies be Able to Sue the People Who Illegally Watch Their Productions?

            The Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) has had a very controversial history with piracy and has recently begun trying to sue not only the people who illegally streamed their product as well as those who watched the illegal streams. GreenFeedz is the first site that the UFC has been able to coerce into giving out information on those that watched the pirated UFC events. GreenFeedz is a site that required a user name and email address to watch the fights. When threatened with legal action GreenFeedz agreed to turn over the legal email addresses, user names and IP addresses as well as a list of which events they pirated. The UFC defended this action by saying that since 13 of their events a year are pay per views that cost from $45 to $55 dollars each that they lose millions of dollars from piracy. The UFC recently sued a bar owner that showed one of its events without a license (licenses run from $500 to $1500) for $640,000 plus legal fees.

            Although the UFC has taken many shots at internet pirates themselves they have also taken some shots of their own. Recently the UFC president Dana White got into an online argument on twitter with members of the hacker group Anonymous. The fight seemed to start because of Dana White's position on piracy and support of the Stop Online Piracy Act. Soon after the altercation the UFC site was hacked for a second time, and Dana White's personal information such as his social security number, cell phone number, and address.

Do you think companies should be able to sue the people who illegally watch their product?

How would you respond to the hacking of your companies site or your personal information if you were Dana White?

Snel, Alan. "Las Vegas Review-Journal." UFC Executive Fends off the Programming Pirates. Las Vegas Review Journal, 16 June 2013. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.

Guillen Jr., Adam. "Report: UFC to Take Legal Action against Fans Who Watched Pirated PPV Streams on GreenFeedz - MMAmania.com." MMAmania.com. N.p., 13 Mar. 2012. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.

Gross, Doug. "UFC President Hacked after Scrapping with Anonymous." CNN. Cable News Network, 27 Jan. 2012. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.

Enigmax. "TorrentFreak." TorrentFreak RSS. N.p., 9 July 2010. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.

Alternatives to Piracy

Piracy always seems like the easy choice, it’s free and readily available but it is illegal so there are many options available to us to help combat piracy and still give us what we want at reasonable prices.

Some options for music would be the online radio apps such as Spotify, Pandora, ITunes radio and so much more. While these options are available for free with ads and limited skips they are also available to buy but for me I think the free version does the job. Also you can listen to music and create playlists through YouTube, so the options are definitely there and as we like for free.

For movies and TV shows there are many different options emerging for us and continually growing, we have Netflix, Hulu, VUDU, ITunes, Redbox, and OnDemand, apps that go along with movie channels such as HBO Go or Starz play and so much more. Netflix not only offers a free month trial, it is also relatively cheap and provides a variety of movies and TV shows and they are continually creating deals with networks to help broaden their selection.  One of their newer deals is with Disney that will get them access to Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Disney animation shows and movies (Lawler). VUDU is one of my favorites that I’ve talked about recently, most of you may know when you buy a DVD now inside there is a card with the digital copy, this is usually done through VUDU. When I created an account I automatically received a $5 credit and ten free preselected movies just for creating the account. I also liked that it didn’t require me to put a credit or debit card on file. The awesome thing about VUDU is they will offer discounts on TV shows previous seasons when the new season is getting ready to come out. Also you can rent from the site and it will give you options from SD to HD quality, personally the SD isn’t bad and is cheaper which it is always nice to have options (VUDU). Something that I didn’t even realize was really an option was the OnDemand feature offered by my TV provider, I currently have AT&T U-verse and I was able to watch all three seasons of the show Shameless for free which was very nice and convenient. Not all shows are offered through this feature but it never hurts to check.

As you can see we have so many options for alternatives to piracy that are reasonably priced and allow us to still support our favorite artists, actors and actresses and all of the people who work hard to create those shows we love.

Lawler, Ryan. "Netflix Strikes Streaming Deal With Disney, Gains Exclusive Access To New Titles Beginning In 2016." TechCrunch. N.p., 4 Dec. 2012. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/04/netflix-disney/

"Stream Hundreds of New Releases Years before They're on Netflix*." VUDU. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.

http://www.vudu.com/

Types of Piracy

Here are some types of piracy's that occur in software.

Counterfeiting- illegal duplication and/or sale of copyrighted material with the intent of imitating the copyrighted product

Internet Piracy- software downloaded from the internet such as peer-to-peer networks that enable unauthorized transfer of copyrighted programs

End User Piracy- reproductions of copies of software without authorization such as coping sics for installation or distribution

Client-Server Overuse- too many users on a network are using a central copy of a program at the same time

Hard-Disk Loading- business sells new computers with illegal copies of software onto hard disks to make purchase of machines more attractive

"Types of Piracy." Symantec, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2013 http://www.symantec.com/about/profile/antipiracy/types.jsp

How Piracy can turn into a revenue source for businesses

 

          Piracy often has a negative connotation attached to it. People automatically think of criminals that steal that steal content in order to make people’s lives worse. Companies can, however, see an increase of revenue from even the most common forms of online pirating.

One of the more common goals for entertainment businesses is to convert the people who pirate their content into paying customers. By finding out which regions of the world pirate certain type of content, it helps the business single out which consumers have been giving more attention to your product. Italy, Russia and India are known for their high volume pirating of enterprise software. A huge corporation like Microsoft would target users of Windows XP Professional by notifying them the benefits of buying the full copy of their software, while also was offering them a discount through certain ads.  This incentivizes these large consumer bases because they have already shown high interest in these products.

Another aspect to keep in mind is protecting your digital assets from theft. When launching your products out on the Internet, it is imperative to make sure they are protected through license keys or through other forms of digital rights management (DRM) services. Key communications can be installed to connect to a central server. It would then be able to notify the business when someone is using the software without having paid for it. This procedure helps protect the software that you’re using to try to sell, to potential new customers.

Sources

Vodnik, Craig. "How to Make Software Piracy a Revenue Source." Yahoo Small Business Advisor. Business 2 Community, n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/software-piracy-revenue-source-094550278.html

Real Life "Pirates"

We can lecture about the immorality and consequences of piracy for days. Most people will take notice, maybe hold back on illegally downloading for a while, and then partake in the mindless activity once again. So, why is it so easy for Internet users to continue this cycle? Because there is little to no reprimand for doing so. Due to its high volume, piracy is difficult to find fault and, in turn, be penalized for.

Rather than focus just on the individual consequences of online piracy, it is important to consider the repercussions for those large, well-known sites that give us the content in the first place…note the word- give. Piracy sites such as music hubs and online movie streaming sites essentially “steal” from artists and actors and make it readily available to the public at no cost. It sounds great for the average at-home person. However, these sites are knowingly aiding in the loss of millions of dollars to the rightful owners.

An article in the Washington Times puts this method of “mass piracy” into perspective. A site called Megaupload.com was formerly one of the world’s biggest file-sharing empires. The company was based out of Hong Kong, while the founder was living in New Zealand. The United States became involved after the discovery of company servers in Virginia. U.S. prosecutors estimate that the sites costs over $500 million in lost revenue for copyright holders. Needless to say, that is a huge number. Former CEO of Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, was arrested along with others working for the company.

So how are large, well-known sites like these able to run for so long? That is the million-dollar question. Prior to the site’s termination it obtained endorsements from celebrities such as Alicia Keys and Kanye West. For Megaupload, publicity was a huge key in the site’s success. The article did not say exactly what incentive artists would have for promotion of the site, but one can probably assume they weren’t just doing it for free.

It is already difficult to collect enough facts/evidence to prosecute piracy sites within our own country. It becomes even more difficult when these sites are located overseas, where our jurisdiction is restricted. Having global servers allows companies, like Megaupload, to quite literally “spread” their sources- and therefore, lower their chances of being personally identified and penalized.

o   Below is a link to the article for anyone interested.

o   A court date for the Megaupload controversy is still pending.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/20/us-internet-piracy-case-brings-new-zealand-arrests/?page=all

Work Cited

Barakat, Matthew. US Internet piracy case brings New Zealand arrests. The Washington Times. 20 January, 2012. Web. 7 October, 2013.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/20/us-internet-piracy-case-brings-new-zealand-arrests/?page=all

           

Blog # 5

            We all know that piracy is illegal, but how much does it really hurt the digital entertainment industry? This is one of the many topics involving piracy that we are all curious about, but have not yet been able to determine. One recent study by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies showed that as of now piracy “does not displace digital sales.”

            The internet habits of 16,000 Europeans were recently examined and showed that many of the songs that the Europeans downloaded illegally would not have been purchased had the illegal downloading sites not been available. While this is still stealing it does not financially hurt artists in the entertainment industry. The study determined that people who would download music illegally were still likely to purchase other music legally. It was also determined that people who did not download music illegally were less likely to buy music.

            A counter intuitive theory that was brought up by this survey was the idea that piracy could actually help artists sell albums. This study surprising showed a link between illegal downloads and increased purchasing of music legally. The idea  was that people who were able to sample music by a certain artist would then  be able to decide if they liked the music enough to purchase the whole entire album or other works of the artist. The study succeeded in showing a two percent increase in legal sales for every ten percent increase in clicks on illegal downloads. In the countries of France, and the United Kingdom there was a four percent increase in sales while Spain and Italy saw no change in sales.

            This survey has many limitations such as only providing information on digital sales and not physical sales possibly differentiated buying patterns of Europeans in comparison with the rest of the world, and an ever changing entertainment industry. We will never know all the affects piracy has had on the entertainment industry but is it possible that piracy could help the entertainment industry in some ways?

  Works Cited

           

Steadman, Ian. "Another Study Finds Music Piracy 'does Not Displace Digital Sales'" Wired UK. Wired Magazine, 21 Mar. 2013. Web. 28 Sept. 2013.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-03/21/music-piracy-doesnt-hurt-sales