This document discusses digital compression, greater bandwidth, ease of distribution, and technical measures for copyright protection. It contains multiple images with attribution notes but no other text. In summary, it focuses on how digital compression, bandwidth increases, and distribution methods impact copyright protection techniques.
*Welcome everybody to your presentation . “Hope you enjoy it”*In the presentation I will be going over the threats to copyright, the legal disputes that have taken place over the past decade, the solutions that nations have implemented and how the general public felt about these solutions and the threats to copyright in the future.
Copyright refers to laws that regulate the use of the work of a creator, such as an artist or author. This includes copying, distributing, altering and displaying creative, literary and other types of work. Due to the advancements in technology and the Internet, the definition of copyright has been changed over and over.
The three biggest threats to copyright are Digital Compression, Greater Bandwidth and Ease of Distribution.
Over the past decade technology has allowed the public to simply do what was seen as impossible in the past. Large files can be simply compressed using such applications as DVD shrink, used to shrink the size of movie files and WINRAR, used to shrink the size of general files.
Greater Bandwidth allows Internet users to receive more data packages than before. Unlimited Bandwidth means their is no limit to the amount of packages received but this is usually subjected to slow download speeds.
With Digital Compression and Greater Bandwidth comes the ease in which illegally copied files can be Distributed. Small packages can be sent and received faster and more efficient. Compression applications are so efficient that little to no quality damage is done to the files.
Downloading over the past decade has soared thanks to these threats to copyright.
Torrent sites have gained in popularity due to the vast increase in downloading. Since Napsters demise in 2001, other torrents sites have been created with de centralised servers. This meant that these programs were less easy for corporations or recording industries to track down, the main problem with Napster. Napster is now, ironicly, a music subscription service.
The Pirate Bay was created by three Swedish men, GottfridSvartholm, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde and was launched on the 15th September 2003. Since then the site has grown from strength to strength and to this day has over 5 million registered users and over 3.5 million torrent files. The PirateBay is the largest BitTorrent tracker in the world.
The men have gone through the courts on numerous occasions being the plaintiff and the defendant. They have spent time in prison and have received many fines. This is one of the most famous cases of copyright infringements.
ACTA (Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement) is a multinational treaty for the purpose of establishing international standards for intellectual property rights enforcement. The agreement aims to establish an international legal framework for targeting counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet. There has been mixed feelings about the Agreement across the World.
Many people across the world are protesting because of this treaty. Many think it will censor the internet and take away our human right to freedom of speech. Pictured above is an Anonymous supporter protesting the treaty. Anonymous, a hactivist group, have been tormenting governments, to show that the general public arent happy with ACTA. Anonymous took down the Fine Geal website on the 9th of Januarey 2012.
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) was a United States bill introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar Smith to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual and counterfeit goods. This bill was also protested and was abandoned in the U.S. The following pictures depicts how ACTA will be invading the internet’s privacy, thus invading each of its users privacy also.
On the 29th of February 2012 SOPA Ireland was passed today by Sean Sherlock, Minister for Research and Innovation. This was done despite protests and a petition on http://stopsopaireland.com/ which reached to 80,000 signatures. The law has being introduced due to pressure from the music industry who are currently suing the Irish government for failing to provide legislative provisions for blocking, diverting and interrupting internet
With the growing pressure on legal systems across the world from frustrated record industries and bands in the last decade, has a solution to the problem being created? According to a article in PostNote the answer is yes. The following procedures are the solutions to Copyright Infringement. In France the government sought to tax search engines which would allow users to gain access to torrent sites.
Copy protection can be fully effective provided the protection measures to be included not only in the media (CDs, DVDs, etc.) but also in the devices that read them (players, computer drives, etc.) according to the PostNote article. If a pirate copy is inserted into the DVD player, the DVD player will shut down and wont allow the user to open again. This must be technically removed and it is then that they’ll be caught.
Copyright protection is also a measure used. This may involve putting a “watermark” on the digital data on media such as those listed above. This will result in copies of such data will not have the same quality as the original, thus not being worthwhile to copy. Pictures with copy protection may not allow any users to be saved to their computer. Films with copy Protection wont allow applications like DVD Shrink to work.
Due to the recent setbacks in file sharing, users are seeking alternative ways of file sharing. This has sprung the concept of Darknets. Darknets is a way of downloading anonymous, indiscriminate and uncensored files. Most are unheard until now because users didn't need to be so secure about file sharing. Now that file sharing users may be faced with a criminal conviction or a hefty fine, security is essential.
StegoShare is a java program. This program breaks the file the user wishes to send into pieces and through the use of stenography, hides the pieces inside images. This will look like the user is sending lots of pictures to the ISP. This way of file sharing is completely anonymous and untraceable. With the introduction of SOPA in Ireland I think this method will be the future of file sharing.