Product Code Database
Online piracy (also called digital piracy, internet piracy or software piracy) is the practice of and digitally distributing copyrighted works, such as music, movies or software, without permission. (2025). 9783319784403, Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783319784403
WordStar was so widely pirated that many books on how to use the software appeared, their authors knowing that they were selling documentation for illicit copies. Starting in the 1980s, the availability of Modem led to the creation of the first warez distribution groups. Piracy of Atari 8-bit and Atari ST software was so rampant that it discouraged publishers from releasing products for those computers. ST-Log warned that "we had better put a stop to piracy now ... it can have harmful effects on the longevity and health of your computer". Internet Relay Chat featured file servers and XDCC prior to numerous methods and still continue to be used.
The release of Napster in 1999 caused a rapid upsurge in online Music piracy, films and television, though it always maintained a focus on music in the MP3 format. It allowed users to share content via peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and was one of the first mainstream uses of this Upload as it made it easy for regular users to get free music. Napster's popular use would only be short lived, as on July 27, 2000, it was ordered to be shut down by a federal judge; it was officially shut down July 11, 2001 in order to comply with the order and the case was officially settled on September 24, 2001.
Although it was short-lived, Napster's reign allowed its users to dive into the grey area of content piracy. Following its shutdown, many other popular P2P file sharing programs arose: the creation and usage of LimeWire quickly followed suit. Learning from the mistakes of Napster, Limewire decentralized their servers by implementing the Gnutella network. The success of the BitTorrent communication protocol led to the rise of many other popular programs that are still widely used today including μTorrent, Transmission, Deluge, qBittorrent, and Tixati.
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/ref> According to the IP Commission Report the annual cost of intellectual property theft to the U.S. economy "continues to exceed $225 billion in counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets and could be as high as $600 billion."
A 2019 study sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC), in partnership with NERA Economic Consulting "estimates that global online piracy costs the U.S. economy at least $29.2 billion in lost revenue each year." An August 2021 report by the Digital Citizens Alliance states that "online criminals who offer stolen movies, TV shows, games, and live events through websites and apps are reaping $1.34 billion in annual advertising revenues." The DCA claims that they consist of "risky advertising that exposes consumers to fraud and malware."
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While these sites are occasionally shut down, they are often quickly replaced, and may move through successive national legal jurisdictions to avoid law enforcement. These efforts at detection and enforcement are further complicated by the often prohibitive amount of time, resources and number of personnel required.
Some jurisdictions, such as Thailand and Malaysia, have no legislation in place to address online piracy, and others, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, have oversight regimes in place that have proven largely ineffective.
Despite the discourse on the digital threat of piracy, it has been shown that innovation and the creation of new works is flourishing more than ever on the Internet.Frosio, G. F. (2016). Digital piracy debunked: a short note on digital threats and intermediary liability. Internet Policy Review, 5(1). Piracy has also benefited users in countries where content is either unavailable or delayed. In the case of ABC Studios Lost, the fear of its last episode being pirated in European and Middle Eastern countries pushed the network to accelerate the episode's distribution to those countries, resulting in the episode being available in those countries 24–48 hours after the original American broadcast.
Conversely, those same individuals cited that the prevalence of piracy is due to the industry's inability to cater to the consumer. Many cite unsatisfactory industry practices such as obtrusive DRM in paid software, overpriced media, and split markets as their reason for pirating. Digital piracy has posed a significant threat to the development of the software industry and the growth of the digital media industry, it has, for the last decade, held considerable interest for researchers and practitioners. In the context of Indonesia, moral equity has affected digital piracy behavior negatively. Therefore, efforts to reduce piracy have been focused on highlighting the importance of fairness and justice..
Studying the causes and effects of digital piracy is one way of evaluating the ethics of how our society consumes and spreads media to one another. Ample research in the study of digital piracy can help better understand the psychology and ethics of digital ethics. One of the research approaches that has provided a theoretical framework for studying software piracy has been to place the illegal copying of software within the domain of ethical decision making assumes that a user must be able to recognize software piracy as a moral issue. A person who cannot recognize a moral issue will fail to use moral decision-making schemata. There is evidence that many individuals do not perceive software piracy to be an ethical problem.. Research findings published in the International Journal of Electronic Commerce Studies' suggested that personal morals decrease digital piracy mainly in the first phase, whereas neutralization is used by individuals to support their behavior throughout other phases.
As more content is fractured into different services, consumers gravitate more towards piracy due to the inconvenience and prohibitive cost of managing multiple service subscriptions to different entities that provide their own content service such as Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Fandango at Home, Peacock, Max and Disney+. A surge in this practice occurred in 2023, where nearly 229 billion visits to piracy-related websites were recorded, and Quartz partly attributed certain platforms' subscriber losses, namely Disney+ and Hulu, to increased piracy.
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