The Age of Piracy

Piracy has become so common for our generation that most of us do not even think twice about doing it. At this point most of us have even forgotten that it is illegal and lead to serious punishments. Rightscorp, a company started in LA in 2011, helps big companies reduce piracy. It was founded on the idea that instead of these companies using a very costly lawsuit, they contact Rightscorp who then contacts the pirates and sends them to a site where they can settle with $20 per pirated work. 

It is almost as if big companies and the government want piracy to continue. These big companies can't be happy enough that Rightscorp is saving them time and money. They do the dirty work and help these companies/clients avoid a big lawsuit, but that is not enough for the clients. They still have to be greedy and take 50% of Rightscorp's earnings. How do these companies except to continue contacting Rightscorp if they are stealing all their profit.

Before trying to target specific individuals, certain technologies were targeted. Initially, the music industry tried to stop P2P file sharing by sending lawyers after the innovators, with the hope to smother the technology. A classic example would be Napster. After Napster was shut down, new networks quickly appeared. Also shutting down Napster gave people a better knowledge of file sharing. Many people began to realize that they could use these technologies to share their music and get music of their choice as well off other users. Eventually the number of file sharers along with the number of P2P applications has continued to grow. The different agencies in the multimedia industries soon realized suing the technology didn't work, so they moved on the most vulnerable: college students.

While this sounded like a great idea, the investigators soon realized they could not tie an IP address to a name and street address without the help of Internet Service Providers. Eventually through many court hearings these ISPs were not authorized to hand over this information to these investigative agencies. Agencies soon dropped their efforts in these manhunts and decided to focus on high profile individual cases, while leaving other cases to companies like Rightscorp. 

However, no matter how agencies and companies try to stops pirates, pirates will continue to pirate. With the continual growth of P2P users and the financial troubles companies like Rightscorp are facing, how do these agencies expect to continue fighting without losing  time and money themselves. 

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/rightscorp-bills-pirates-for-20-a-song-burns-more-money-than-ever/