Copyrights and Piracy

            There were days in the past when if somebody stole your work and claimed to be the original author, you could do nothing but prove by some means that it is in fact your own work. If the original papers too were stolen, you could only try to persuade people to believe you. It is entirely possible that many people with malicious intents or out of greed might have taken credit for others’ work, and who knows some of the famous works might have been works of some unknown geniuses. Some might say that it would be absurd to claim such a thing, but I am just trying to point that in those days you could not protect your work in advance and there were no specific legal provisions for that too. It is not very long before the concepts of Copyrights (legal protection given to the original author of an intellectual work), Piracy (use and/or distribution of work without authorized permission or author’s knowledge) and Intellectual Property (the right to own your intellectual creations) came out.   

            The present business world is very competitive. Now, there are not only physical sites to sell your products, but you can sell productions online i.e. e-commerce. People can find the different types of products at just a mouse click, and even if they choose to buy on physical sites, they are very selective regarding the products and their features. Therefore, it is very important for a business to make their products stand-out and be able to compete in the market. For that, the businesses work very hard, come up with innovative ideas and materialize them into revolutionary products, with an equal probability of failure. However, it is possible that after some success a competitor might use the same idea, which took literally years of investment and research, and without same level of hard work or risk, make the same amounts using that concept. Thus, it is very important to protect your intellectual property and register the copyright. Doing this would force other businesses to think twice before using your ideas, or at least give you a good deal for legal permission to use it.

            In the same way, we have many “brands” that exist in market nowadays. The products by the leading businesses are trusted by the consumers based on their brand names. An iPhone is usually valued more than other Smartphones, people have preferences between Coca Cola or Pepsi, and same applies to products of Adidas and Nike. People can be deceived if such brand names are jumbled by one or two letters and the ones who make fake products enjoy the benefits. For example, one of my good friends once bought a “Nokai” phone thinking that it was “Nokia”. I myself once bought a Football (Soccer) Jersey which turned out to be a fake one, and this time the name was not jumbled at all!! So, obtaining a “Trademark” is too very important in today’s business world so that nobody can use your goodwill as a way to market low quality goods or services.

            Piracy is using and/or distributing written, visual, audio, and other intellectual property without knowledge of the author, or in any other illegal way. It is clear from the definition of piracy itself that if we are copying software or other resources which are the intellectual creation of someone, we are violating the intellectual property right of the author because we are doing like we are the real owners of the software and we can do anything with it. Moreover, the original author does not even know that a new copy of this software or resource is being made and will be used by a new user.

Though we are not using it to earn more money and distributing to large number of users, it is similar because if many individuals like us do that it will eventually create thousands of illegal copies. Furthermore, we are doing this to gain monetary advantage of not paying for the copy of the software. Despite of the time, money and knowledge spent on creating the software, the original author would not obtain anything from that unreported distribution. Instead, it would cost the author a lot of money which he/she might have expected to earn. Hence, our act would be analogous to robbing the software from the author’s custody as if a pirate would rob things from a ship. Thus, copying software and other resources is piracy.

Finally, as individuals, we should respect the hard work of other people like we would expect for ours. Being recognized for our creation is our right and recognizing others should be part of our ethics. We should never go against such ethics and more importantly laws that protect this right. We should give respect to take respect. We should have a righteous thinking and must transform it into righteous behavior. 

References:

WIPO (n.d.), What is Intellectual Property?, pp. 2-8, Retrieved from http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/intproperty/450/wipo_pub_450.pdf

United States Copyright Office (2012), Copyright Basics, pp. 2-7, Retrieved from http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf

SIIA (2013), Glossary of Anti-Piracy and Copyright Terms, Retrieved from http://www.siia.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=268:ap-terms&catid=162:anti-piracy-articles&Itemid=344