A LESSON FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS
INTERNET PIRACY
PIRACY
WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?
Welcome
Welcome to Internet Piracy, a website educating teacher's and students about the issues surrounding internet piracy. The following web pages will detail different aspects and stories of internet piracy mainly through video and text. The most informative page of this website for students will be the "Emergence" page including information on the history of internet piracy and the current developments and laws students should be aware of. The other pages will include my personal opinion on the matter and a sample lesson for teaching students grades 7-12 about music piracy. Find a general definition of piracy and internet piracy below.
Piracy
According to dictionary.com (n.d.) piracy is "practice of a pirate; robbery or illegal violence at sea." Surprise! This website is actually about the modern day pirates that commit theft and violence at sea! Just kidding..... The second definition offered at dictionary.com defines piracy as "the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc."
WiseGEEK.org (n.d.) defines internet piracy as the reproduction and/or distribution of any copyrighted digital file that can change hands over the Internet! This can apply to music files, videos, movies, e-books, computer software, video games and many other materials. This has become a worldwide issue because internet piracy can be committed with relative ease from any where in the world and over long distances.
Piracy, it's a crime.
This is a short video that defines piracy as a downloading "pirated material" in the example in this video it would be pirated movies. The video compares piracy to direct object theft. Lets take a quick look at Canadian copyright law to define copyright ownership and copyright infringement.
From the Canada Copyright Act
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Copyright is defined as "...the sole right to produce or reproduce the work or any substantial part thereof in any material form whatever, to perform the work or any substantial part thereof in public or, if the work is unpublished, to publish the work or any substantial part thereof, and includes the sole right to......" (Copyright Act, 2015, Section 3)
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Internet Piracy or the reproduction or distribution of copyrighted works is defined as copyright infringement. "It is an infringement of copyright for a person, by means of the Internet or another digital network, to provide a service primarily for the purpose of enabling acts of copyright infringement if an actual infringement of copyright occurs by means of the Internet or another digital network as a result of the use of that service." (Copyright Act, 2015, Section 27)
So in lamens terms.... Copyright is defined as having the SOLE right to produce or reproduce a work in whatever form or medium the owner would like. Copyright law has a large amount of factors and exceptions to the rule, but copyright infringement at it's most basic form is taking that SOLE (or entire) right to produce or reproduce a work that does not belong to you. Stealing! It is also copyright infringement to provide a service for people to infringe copyright! This would include P2P services like Limewire. So participating in downloading pirated (or copyright infringement material) is infringing on the copyright the original owner has on their material. So the above video is correct! Piracy is a crime! In Canada specifically it is infringing on copyright laws even if the material originates for other countries (Copyright Act, 2015, Section 27).
It is important to note that there are many exceptions to Canada's copyright law. For example, reproducing material for educational purposes is allowed in most cases (again, lots of exceptions to the rule). Many other exceptions exist such as reproduction for private purposes, temporary reproduction, library use ect. (Copyright Act, 2015, Section 29)
That gives you a good basic definition of copyright infringement (Piracy). The world of piracy includes people making the illegal material available via the internet, and the people downloading the pirated (stolen) material and viewing it. It is important to be aware of what copyright owners have done and are currently trying to do with governments and other officials to stop internet piracy. The "Emergence" page will inform both students and teachers about the history and prominence of internet piracy in the world today.