Malicious Hacking and Software Piracy
History of Online Piracy.
The first major file sharing program to exist, and also to be shut down, was Napster. Napster was a pioneer in peer-to-peer file sharing, operating from 1999 to 2001, it became popular despite the established presence of other file sharing methods due to its user-friendly interface and its overall ease of use. Casual computer users could now download and share any music they wanted all for free. At its peak, Napster had over 25 million users and 80 million songs, and despite this huge load, the Napster system never once crashed. Various high profile artist filed law suits against Napster when it would not remove copyrighted material, Napster settled these suits, but not before it was shut down due to a separate law suit filed by several recording companies under the newly passed Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This marked the first significant blow to digital piracy by the music industry. Despite this, those who were using Napster moved on to different file sharing programs such as BitTorrent and Limewire, both of which are still popular today, and if anything piracy increased. Torrenting sites like the Pirate Bay are legal to stay open because they are not hosting the actual copyrighted material but instead they are hosting a sort of map which tells users where to go, and under Swedish law (which is where they are hosted) this is unquestionably not illegal. Analogous to how you would not breaking the law if you told someone where a bank was and he subsequently went and robbed it. Online music and movie piracy is a real life crime, and with crime comes consequences. The fact is, online piracy is a continuous problem that is negatively affecting the music and movie industry. However, the level at which piracy has affected these industries is still under quite a bit a dispute. The RIAA asserts that piracy has cost the United States economy over $12 billion in total output annually as well as over 70,000 lost jobs. The RIAA has also said that “both the volume of music acquired without paying for it and the resulting drop in revenues are staggering. Digital sales, while on the rise, are not making up the difference. There should be no doubt that piracy undermines the entire chain of creating and investing in music.” Conversely, there have been studies done that suggest that piracy has a minimal,if not negligible, effect on music sales, and that piracy can in fact sometimes act as a driving force in increasing music sales. What both sides can agree on is the fact that online piracy is now easier and therefore more prevalent than ever.
Examples of Piracy
The most common type of piracy, softlifting, (also called softloading), means sharing a program with someone who is not authorized by the license agreement to use it. A common form of softlifting involves purchasing a single licensed copy of software and then loading the software onto several computers, in violation of licensing terms. On college campuses, it is rare to find a software program that has not been softloaded. People regularly lend programs to their roommates and friends, either not realizing it's wrong, or not thinking that it's a big deal. Softlifting is common in both businesses and homes.
Often committed by hardware dealers, this form of piracy involves loading an unauthorized copy of software onto a computer being sold to the end user. This makes the deal more attractive to the buyer, at virtually no cost to the dealer. The dealer usually does not provide the buyer with manuals or the original CDs of the software. This is how operating systems, like Windows 95, are often pirated.
The fastest-growing form of piracy is Internet piracy. With the growing number of users online, and with the rapidly increasing connection speeds, the exchange of software on the Internet has attracted an extensive following. In the past, bulletin board systems (BBS) were the only place where one could download pirated software. Currently, there are hundreds of thousands of "warez" sites providing unlimited downloads to any user. Often, the software provided through these "warez" sites is cracked to eliminate any copy protection schemes.
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