Digital Piracy

A Global, Multidisciplinary Account

Steven Caldwell Brown, Thomas Holt, Steven Caldwell Brown, Thomas Holt, Thomas J. Holt, Steven Caldwell Brown, Thomas J. Holt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138067400
• eBook ISBN: 9781351657273
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Non-Commercial digital piracy has seen an unprecedented rise in the wake of the digital revolution; with wide-scale downloading and sharing of copyrighted media online, often committed by otherwise law-abiding citizens. Bringing together perspectives from criminology, psychology, business, and adopting a morally neutral stance, this book offers a holistic overview of this growing phenomenon. It considers its cultural, commercial, and legal aspects, and brings together international research on a range of topics, such as copyright infringement, intellectual property, music publishing, movie piracy, and changes in consumer behaviour. This book offers a new perspective to the growing literature on cybercrime and digital security.

This multi-disciplinary book is the first to bring together international research on digital piracy and will be key reading for researchers in the fields of criminology, psychology, law and business.

Part I

Introduction

1 Contextualising digital piracy

Thomas J. Holt and Steven Caldwell Brown

Digital piracy, sometimes called illegal downloading (or any number of other terms), refers to the act of acquiring intellectual property without remuneration to the artist, creator, or producer of the content. Piracy is a controversial area of academic research and is of interest not only to industry bodies and governments, but to legal scholars and law enforcement. Much research to date comes from economists (see Kariithi, 2011), which is representative of the natural tendency for research to focus on the economic impact of digital piracy. A similarly substantive area of research considers if digital piracy is ‘bad’, and if so, in what ways and for whom based on criteria such as lost revenue, lost taxes, dilution of property (e.g. Gopal et al., 2004). Other research from the social sciences has explored other areas such as who engages in digital piracy, and what factors are associated with pirating behaviours (e.g. Higgins & Marcum, 2011). This ever-growing body of research that encompasses a variety of scholars from a broad range of disciplines, is sufficient enough to now present convincing answers to these important questions.

The term piracy has been called ambiguous (David, 2010) and elusive (Higgins & Marcum, 2011), reflecting the difficulty in providing a good summary of the scope of digital piracy. Some researchers have defined piracy as a white-collar crime (see Nelken, 2012), only affecting the individual copyright holders whose intellectual property is infringed upon. There is some legitimacy in this point of view, though it is unclear how much commercial piracy, or profiteering from selling copyrighted products on the black market takes place and who is involved in this activity. Instead, the majority of research tends to focus on what can be considered user-end piracy performed by otherwise law-abiding citizens principally using the Internet to obtain copyrighted media for free, violating copyright laws in various nations around the world. This behaviour may again appear to only affect the copyright holders, though research demonstrates that individuals who pirate materials are likely to experience malicious software infections and data loss in the event they download incorrect files (Holt & Copes, 2010; Wolfe, Higgins & Marcum, 2008).

The problem of end-user piracy is also complicated by the fact that there are various platforms that can be used to acquire materials, including the use of direct downloads of files hosted on websites and servers, to more surreptitious methods of distributed peer-to-peer file sharing. In this case, users access and download portions of media or content from multiple user systems, making it more efficient, and difficult to determine the source of materials. In fact, file-sharing software has facilitated digital piracy on a mass scale, by becoming simpler and safer. The methods routinely change, where it has even been argued that file-sharing may soon become a relic of the past, due to emerging technologies (Mendis, 2013), and shifting piracy practices often occur in the face of legal action which seeks to inhibit access to copyrighted materials online via illegal sources. The reasons for seeking out content appear to remain consistent, and copyright remains misunderstood (Towse, 2013).

The development of Internet-based piracy stems from the digitization of media and content. Prior to the creation of the Internet, individuals could find ways to obtain bootleg or pirated versions of music and other media through the use of magnetic audio and video tape cassettes and recorders. Individuals could tape record songs off of the radio, or directly record a duplicate copy of media. The same was true for television and films. The digital revolution spurred by the development of Compact Discs and MP3 compression software, however, inspired widespread copyright infringement of protected works on an unprecedented scale. Scharf (2013) referred to these factors (the Internet, MP3, and peer-to-peer file sharing) as a holy trinity that created the phenomenon of digital piracy as we now know it and indeed it is the music industry that has been hit harder than any other creative sector due to such digital technologies (Watson, 2016). Since the spread of file-sharing technologies, recorded music revenues have dropped all across the world (Aguiar & Waldfogel, 2015), though it is overly simplistic to attribute this directly to digital piracy (Nowak, 2015). Music remains the most pirated type of media, lending due to its popularity (particularly amongst young people) and the fact that digital music files are small and easy to transfer online. The majority of research into digital piracy focuses on music.

The media used to exchange copyrighted digital files such as MP3 music files change on a regular basis; Bit-Torrent (a protocol supporting the transmission of large volumes of data over the Internet) dominated throughout the 00s, outliving previous trends (Sockanathan, 2011). In recent years however, new technologies have risen to prominence with the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a not-for-profit organisation who represent the interests of the recorded music industry globally, now focusing on stream-ripping applications, which record content being streamed on the likes of YouTube. As with wider music trends, it could be said that music piracy changes with the times – the key constant however, is that many consumers to refuse pay for music legally when illegal options are also available. The individuals running piracy websites and services that enable illegal downloading profit from doing so, and as such, are what can be better thought of as commercial pirates. On the surface, user-end piracy is straightforwardly free (as are most activities online) but ultimately, engagement in digital piracy unfairly grants commercial pirates profits they are not entitled to. It is likely that most people do not realise this. YouTube is a major focus for the music industry, with IFPI (2016) discussing the ‘value gap’ wherein such services bypass normal licensing rules, leading to unfair remuneration. The organisation believes that stream-ripping via the likes of YouTube is now the dominant mode of music piracy (see Garrahan, 2016).

Since the Internet and computer technology are nearly ubiquitous in modern society, it is thought that millions of people engage in digital piracy every day. The true scope of piracy is, however, difficult to document as clear statistics are difficult to obtain. Rates of arrest for digital piracy are not published in traditional crime statistics and are largely unavailable, save for reports from industry advocacy groups. Conservative estimates of Internet users actively downloading copyrighted media illegally tend to cluster around one third of the global population: this perhaps amounts to the single most prevalent crime in history.

Calculating a worst-case scenario estimation on the impact of digital piracy, Ian Hargreaves (2011), who was tasked to investigate the need for copyright reform in the UK by then Prime Minister David Cameron, argues that even when working from industry estimates the cost of piracy is underwhelming in economic terms. Elsewhere, Pakinkis (2014), reflecting on a report from the then UK Prime Minister’s IP Adviser Mike Weatherly, claims that piracy costs the UKs creative industries approximately £400 million per year – this cannot be said to be negligible. However, some estimates from the United States project truly astronomical costs due to piracy, as legislators argued that the US economy lost between $200 and $250 billion per year as a justification for the failed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2012 (Sanchez, 2012). In July 2015, Google received 54,810,885 notifications to remove or delete items from search indexes infringing copyright (Jun Lee & Watters, 2016). A costly process, IFPI (2016) research finds that 94% of all takedown requests sent by IFPI during 2015 related to recordings that were routinely uploaded to sites already notified that the content was breaching copyright.

The conflicts noted above are common throughout research into digital piracy from all across the globe. There is very little information currently available that is viewed with trust and grounded in reproducible evidence. As a result the three principal stakeholders in the debate on digital piracy, industry, government, and consumers (and/or so-called ‘pirates’), are frequently at odds with one another. There is a perception amongst the latter party that digital piracy is a victimless crime. Yet, with so many new bills introduced in the past decade designed specifically to minimise digital piracy (particularly in North America and Europe), one can readily assume that there must be a negative impact on the creative and cultural industries in order to justify such costly and often aggressive, costly, and unpopular measures (e.g. Brenner, 2011). Anti-piracy measures have largely failed, with pirates easily adapting their methods to circumvent any technical and legislative changes. Higgins and Marcum (2011) explain that knowledgeable Internet users always seem to outsmart new technologies faster than they can be produced. In fact, many anti-piracy strategies also appear to inadvertently encourage digital piracy. Wikström (2011) suggests that: ‘Perhaps the single most enduring effect of these [music piracy] initiatives has been a negative impact on the reputation of the music industry’ (p. 155).

In recent years, the most effective anti-piracy measure appears to be the rise of attractive legal alternatives to digital piracy. For instance, there are now over 500 legal digital music services globally, and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (2015) report that subscription services are now an integral part of the music business. Subscription and ad-supported streaming services have grown from 9% to 27% of digital revenues in the last five years. The preference for all things digital has been clearly acted upon by industry, striving to meet consumer demands. The likes of Spotify, market-leader in music subscription services, can be said to accommodate the same driving forces behind accessing music legally – convenient, free access to large databases of music, at low cost. The impact of digital media on traditional bricks-and-mortar music retailers, or on cinemas over the long term remains to be seen. Furthermore, where Spotify rests in the bigger digital picture is at present unclear. It has been shown that individuals engaging in music streaming are also more likely to engage in music piracy (Borja, Dieringer & Daw, 2015). At the same time, multiple studies demonstrate that individuals engaging in digital piracy also spend more money on legal media (Huygen et al., 2009; Karaganis & Renkema, 2013; Thun, 2009; Watson et al., 2015; and Zentner, 2006).

These mixed findings reinforce the need for nuanced research considering the impact of piracy from multiple perspectives. Thus, this book attempts to address these issues through different contributors that collectively help provide a far richer understanding of digital piracy. For instance, it has been suggested that piracy offers a ‘try before you buy’ means to make more informed purchasing decisions (Peitz & Waelbroeck, 2006). Research frequently finds that individuals engaging in digital piracy assert this reason to justify their behaviour (e.g. Holt & Copes, 2010; Ingram & Hinduja, 2008). Certainly, a recent trend in research shows how many people who access media illegally also purchase it illegally, increasingly making use of different platforms to satisfy different needs (Sinclair & Green, 2016).

This book addresses the need to critically evaluate the current research to date into digital piracy in order to better present a clear and concise account of ‘the good’, ‘the bad’, and ‘the unclear’. This book does so by bringing together the collective expertise of a wide range of scholars from across the globe, sharing their expertise from a range of academic disciplines. The often competing interests of an array of stakeholders are considered, including not only government, industry, and consumers, but Internet service providers, and other parties who are affected or influenced by digital piracy.

This book draws on the expertise of academics from a wide range of disciplines from all over the globe. Their collective contributions offer rich insight into the many interrelated facets of digital piracy in the real world, and invite readers to challenge their beliefs and consider the broader context in which digital piracy is rooted. In defence of academics’ favourable advantages in researching the music industry, Williamson et al. (2011) explain that:

As academics we have not only methodological expertise but also, on the whole, more knowledge of our specialist field than its practitioners – we understand its broader context, we can draw on comparative international and institutional material, we have a longer historical perspective, we have the advantages of disinterest, we are not constrained by encrusted conceptual frameworks

(p. 471)

The academic has, amongst other things, a better understanding of the wider context in which digital piracy takes place in order to make more informed decisions, rather than resting on notions of it being ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or even ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ (as we will see, rudimentary notions of duality are problematic). The academic can review research on the topic in a balanced way (as is their obligation) and point towards the generally weak research methods used or the fact that researchers from different disciplines bring with them particular biases (to name but a few limitations in the research which follows). Put simply, the contributions from the scholars in this book are authoritative.

In their critical and timely addition to the literature in 2015, Watson and associates review the findings from hundreds of research articles on the topic, working from an initial database of over 54,000 sources. The authors conclude that the present knowledge on digital piracy is skewed by methodology, and that most research does not draw from actual data. The academic can conclude that in a lot of specific areas, we just don’t know what is going on; we must interpret findings with caution due to x, y, and z.

Yet, people are reluctant to trust information that does not conform with their viewpoints. In order to fully understand digital piracy and the interrelated politics of the digital economy, it is essential to either a) spend more time reviewing information on the topic or b) start trusting those who have spent more time reviewing information on the topic. The former is unlikely, with people sorting through new information in ways that reinforce what they already believe (Watts, 2012), actively searching for information that exaggerates existing beliefs (Fisher, Goddu & Frank, 2015). To complicate matters, search results are increasingly refined to support your world view, helping you find more the same information. And, for every piece of information online, another exists that challenges it (Kelly, 2011). Correct opinions are no more likely to be found than incorrect ones (Levitin, 2014).

Though this book aims not to be the authoritative source on digital piracy (but rather a central hub of knowledge for interested parties to make up their own minds), it very much aims to position itself in a world where option b is more feasible: regrettably, much academic knowledge is out of the reach of the general public due to issues concerning copyright. Even if laypersons wanted to discover more about digital piracy, they would not be able to. Furthermore, this book takes research methodology into account when interpreting findings, providing the reader with an overview of how conclusions are drawn from empirical research.

In this book, the origins and evolution of digital piracy over time will be presented, along with the consequences the ensuing shifts on consumer preferences have had on the creative and cultural industries. In doing so, a review of anti-piracy strategies and legal responses will be presented, evaluating the effectiveness of these retaliations agains...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• PART I: Introduction
• SECTION I: Evolving media consumption practices
• SECTION II: Approaches to understanding digital piracy
• SECTION III: Assessments of the impact of digital piracy
• Index