Google has a collection/links of many websites which contains pirated materials like torrents, PDF of novels/books, cracked softwares etc. Still why there is nothing illegal about it ?
(in India & other countries)
Respected Sir,
Here are two answers to this one technical and one social. The technical answer is that nobody has yet managed to invent a rights management system that can’t be cracked or bypassed. Meaning that eventually, the pirate will get a bit for a bit-perfect copy of the song/show/movie/game. At that point, the “cost” of making perfect copies is zero and there is no degradation between generations of copies. Which brings me to the social reason. Given the availability of free, perfect, copies the choice to pirate, or not, is one of personal ethics. The notion of “intellectual property” is rather abstract. If you’re not a lawyer or a content creator you probably have little or no understanding of copyright law. It varies from country to country and the exception are fuzzy at best. Add to that the broadcast (intangible) content is a free concept that radio and TV perpetuated and you’re starting from a bad position.
Rightsholders are often their own worst enemy. Charging different amounts for the same content on differing media reinforces the notion that you are buying the media not the content. Shows that are available in one country but not another shows that were available to stream last month but not this month, all incent people to pirate.
There is a great deal of argument about how much harm piracy actually does. Rightsholders would have you believe that every pirated copy is a lost sale, which is frankly silly. There is some evidence that pirated music actually increases sales of legitimate copies. Clearly there is some lost revenue, it’s hard to tell if it’s really material in the big picture.
I hope the answer solves your query.
Regards,
Siddhartha Kundoo
