Internet Piracy. Deadly Parasite or Benign Bug?

Abstract or Introduction

Piracy has been a staple of human history throughout time, and it is showing no signs of stopping any time in the near future. With the adoption of the internet, piracy now has a new face, or rather no face. Anonymous users log on every day to torrent the latest episode of Breaking Bad or the latest and greatest piece of software released in order to acquire this content without having to pay for it. Ever since the invention of Napster and Limewire, piracy has been at the forefront of internet news and the hitlist of corporations. Internet piracy causes massive amounts of issues for corporations that rely on the sales of their services to run and are doing everything in their power to stop it. Through lobbying, many different strict copyright bills, including the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), have been put through Congress in order to cut down on the amount of piracy and increase the legal ramifications of these thefts. I agree that piracy is an immoral and unethical practice, however I believe that piracy provides increased sales figures and that the benefits of piracy, including advances in technology and business practices, outweigh the perceived detriments.

The beginnings of internet piracy came along with the beginnings of the computer generation. It didn't use to be internet piracy, it was simply electronic piracy wherein a person legally buys software, then hands it off to a friend for them to download as well. Internet piracy was very limited in its early days due to the fact that it was much more difficult then than now, as well as the benefits being far outweighed by possible risks. Once digital media became more and more prominent, these barriers to piracy were quickly dissolved. It suddenly became easy to create an identical copy of a file, causing a large influx of pirated content.