The Digital Millennium Copyright Act Essay

Economically, $12.5 billion in losses each year is due to piracy in the music industry, $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings are lost each year due to online piracy and almost 71,000 jobs are lost in the United States every year due to online piracy as well. It may seem that these numbers are horrifying, but one statistic proves otherwise. In the statistics for the highest and lowest piracy rates in 2010, the United States comes up the very top of the lowest piracy percentage, only accounting for 20% of media downloaded from the Internet. Most consumers in the U.S. obtain their media legally because they support their artists. They realize that artists are also people working and making their craft just like everyone else. Consumers may download the songs illegally, but if they really loved the album, they would buy the real deal.

Record companies decided to embrace the profitable possibilities of using the internet and began working on legal pay services. These sites attracted customers by offering legal downloads of individual tracks for very low prices. As a result, millions of music lovers today enjoy downloading 99 cent tracks off of online merchants such as iTunes and Amazon. The music industry is also pleased with these legal pay services, because revenue is increasing again due to the ease, cost-effectiveness, and widespread popularity of buying and selling music digitally. While Fanning’s invention caused a lot of financial damage to the music industry, it also forced them to look towards the future and contemplate how it could adapt to the emerging internet age. Unfortunately, while the recording industry does make plenty of money from legal music downloads, Fanning and his legendary website have become the model for the dozens of illegal music file-sharing sites that have emerged over the past 16 years since Napster’s launch. The educational eMagazine, SchoolVideoNews, states that, “Software such as Gnutella, Limewire, Kazaa…and other free, open-source software used to trade any type of file…have been popular networks for pirating music since Napster” (Britt). These types of companies, and their users, are constantly discovered and sued by

The internet has provided a whole new way for pirates to distribute films illegally and for others to download them—again illegally. The MPAA and others have made attempts to curb the efforts of those recording, uploading, and distributing their films. Some of these attempts include written warnings at the beginning of the film. These they hope will prick the conscience of the viewer and deter the illegal work. Other ways are working on legislation that will punish those in the “piracy industry”. One of the most popular pieces of legislation was the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), which “would dramatically amp up the power of copyright holders to interfere with website operation, make it a felony for any website to stream copyrighted material, and essentially allow the blacklisting of entire domains” (Suderman, 2011). Another popular tactic is working with ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to block or terminate the service of their customers when they are engaging in illegal

Music piracy was sweeping the world, the record industry was taking an exuberant revenue decrease. Consumers who would purchase an album in a retail store at market value were now able to obtain their music for no price at all. Music pirates were able to download their favorite songs to digital devices such as MP3 players and Steve Job’s creation of the iPod. Between 1999 and 2008, annual U.S. revenue from physical recorded music products had fallen from $12.8 billion back to $5.5 billion (Woldfogel). This decrease would begin to cause concern for sales and creation of new music. Record labels began to push for stronger copyright laws, the weak copyright laws were causing major consequences in the recording industry with every investment made in new artists and brands. “The first attempt to prosecute someone who released copyrighted material on the Internet, in 1994 collapsed embarrassingly when the judge threw out the charges — existing case law said that infringement had to be associated with financial gain, and the material had been given away. The No Electronic Theft Act, passed in 1997, closed this loophole. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998, further strengthened the industry's hand it banned attempts to circumvent copy protection” (Mann). With obtaining stronger copyright laws, the record industry would be able to efficiently protect each artist as they produced and released new albums on the music

The (DMCA) Digital Millennium Copyright Act was implemented to enforce copyright laws of the digital age of music downloading and sharing. The congress determined to promote the electrical commerce by the use of distribution of digital works by giving the copyright owners the legal rights to prevent piracy while maintaining the statutory limitations of the exclusive rights.

The music recording industry is in trouble. For several years now, sales of new and popular music have steadily declined and show no sign of changing. The record companies are quick to blame the growing popularity of the Internet; music is being traded in a digital form online, often anonymously, with the use of file-sharing programs such as Morpheus, KaZaA, and Imesh, to name a few. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) succeeded in disbanding the pioneer Internet file-sharing program, Napster, but is facing confrontation with similar programs that are escaping American copyright laws. While there is an obvious connection between declining popular music sales and increasing file sharing, there is more going on than the

Since the 1990’s, the world has experienced boundless improvements and expansion with information systems, technology and the Internet, and as a result, laws have had to evolve as well. Such laws have been up against some very complex and sensitive issues such as how to control piracy of copyrights. In response to such complex issues, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998.

In response to this “epidemic of illegal file sharing” (RIAA 2003a), on June 26, 2003, RIAA redirected legal threats toward individual subscribers of these networks who, in the past, enjoyed anonymity in P2P environments. Prior to RIAA’s recent legal efforts, individual file sharers were almost completely immune from legal liability when violating copyright law. These recent legal developments have considerably altered that perceived notion (Graham 2003; Lichtman 2003). Owing to the impracticality of filing lawsuits against every individual file sharer, RIAA has chosen to focus on a relatively small group of individuals and maximize the publicity surrounding its legal action to discourage the overall participation in file‐sharing networks.

We all know that downloading pirated music and films is illegal, but what exactly is it? The term piracy refers to the copying and selling of music, films and other media illegally; in other words you are copying and selling copyrighted media without the permission of the original owner (NiDirect, n.d.). With the massive growth of the internet and its ability to store and capture vast amounts of data, we have become much more reliable on information systems in all aspects of life, but it does not come without the risk of information technology being used unethically. With the number of IT breakthroughs in recent years “the importance of ethics and human values has been underemphasised” often resulting in various consequences. Not surprisingly one of the many public concerns about the ethical use of IT is that “millions of people have downloaded music and movies at no charge and in apparent violation of copyright laws at tremendous expense to the owners of those copyrights” (Reynolds, Ethics in Information Technology, 2015). This essay covers the ethical issues of downloading pirated music and films and the impact it has on music corporations and recording and film companies.

All works published in the United States before 1923 are in the public domain. Works published after 1922, but before 1978 are protected for 95 years from the date of publication. If the work was created, but not published, before 1978, the copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years.

“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet” (Mark Twain). The concept of copyright in the United States has a large history. The first form of copyright in the United States stems from Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution in the year 1787, where “Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." These “exclusive rights” were originally extremely limited, as the first Copyright Act of 1790 only applied to maps, charts, and books. As time has advanced, copyright practices in the United States have undergone several reforms, among the most recent being the infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998. Said act updated United States law to the requirements of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), such as placing limitations on the liability of online service providers for copyright violations made by users. The act, however, has been a subject of controversy in recent times, as some content creators abuse it to control access to their content. This is accomplished through methods such as copyright trolling, in which the copyright holder produces works solely for the purpose of litigation rather than distribution. Oftentimes, these practices are thought to be a violation of fair use, which enables copyrighted work to be used without

Copyright laws in regards to music should be repealed. The RIAA has misconstrued the perceived effects staring had on artist development and revenue, when in fact the perceived financial short-comings of downloading and peer-to-peer sharing are actually made up through concert-revenue and merchandise-revenue.

With the advent of the Internet, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998 to address the obligations imposed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Treaty. Owners of copyright were concerned that their works would be pirated online, and the existing legal systems in place at the time were insufficient to protect individuals and the industry as a whole. The DMCA was passed in 1998 with the intention of stopping copyright infringers from circumventing anti-piracy protections that have been built into copyrighted works. Specifically, the “Section 1201(a)(1) prohibits the act of circumventing a technological measure used by copyright owners to control access to their works.” Although the DMCA was intended to bolster intellectual property law, it has had a deleterious impact to the industry in the aggregate.

This essay discusses the usefulness of the Digital Economy Act (the 2010 Act) in preventing infringement of copyright. The essay will start off discussing the provisions which imposed ISPs to stop individuals from infringing copyright. Followed by analysing the 2010 Act which caused widespread controversy and outrage in the United Kingdom. Moreover, my intention is to ascertain whether it has been effective since its implementation. Also, I will briefly outline the key provisions relating to infringement of copyright. I will consequently restrict comments to some copyright-related issues, concentrating on peer-to-peer file sharing over the Internet. Thirdly, practical examples will be given to evaluate the DEA. Using legislation, case law and journal articles I will present my findings.

The rise of the Internet era opened the whole new market for traditional media full of opportunities as well as threats. Online piracy being one of them because the music and film industry loses £5.4bn in a year and if it was reduced by 10% it could have created up to 13 thousand jobs in the UK. There are various attempts taken to fight with online piracy; a case study of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement will be considered as well as other legislations attempting to regulate copyrights in the Internet. This