Copyright infringement is the misuse of protected materials or goods without the owner's consent. It could be intentional or unintentional. The stolen data/product could be sold off or used for illegal purposes, which can cause huge losses. All this started back in the 1980s when printing technology came into existence. Many copies were made of the original work and sold for varied prices.?
The digital age makes it easy to manipulate and use such data without the author knowing. This can be misused to illegally obtain credits, money, or a variety of other things by being sold off on the gray or black market. Digital copies can be easily recreated while preserving the original data. The copyright act's tenets can be broken by sharing and using just one copy. The digital era has made copying and dissemination easier. In the digital realm, information spreads like air. The same holds for data with copyright.
The various forms of violations include:
- E-books downloads and sharing without the author's consent?
- using compromised software, or unauthorized use of commercially available software without payment
- using copyrighted data for personal use without the authorization of the intended person
- using someone's work without giving them proper credit and citations
- sharing copyrighted data without credits or the author's permission
- using someone else's creations—such as music, art, or research articles—to create your creations
- Hotlinking, or uninvited user redirection from your website to another, may also constitute copyright infringement.
Methods and platforms used:
- Peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent serve as a platform for illicit product trade. For instance, downloading a new film before its release date without the copyright holder's consent.
- Piracy Cyberlockers, where users illegally download the files/products and upload them on their sites for others to download. It is one of the examples of single-copy many uses of digital piracy.
- Stream Ripping, where users illegally record the streaming content and keep copies of it in their device hard disks violating copyright principles and morals.?
- Cyberspace is a vast area. The only one that most people are aware of is the surface web. However, there is a dark web that is deeper and more complicated. There are black and gray markets there where all illegal activity occurs. Even with DRM and copyright laws in place, the guilty party can still control files in the digital world, alarming both users and authors. Once they are leaked to the gray market or cyberspace, it is impossible to regain access to the original conditions.
Measures against copyright piracy:
- DRM (Digital Rights Management) started in the 1980s and has now come a long way. It controls what content can be accessed and has limited what the users can do with the bought products. Many businesses use it for their hardware and software products. DRM is a type of encryption algorithm or a set of limitations used to stop people from copying and sharing copyrighted data. For example, it tracks and restricts actions of copying or downloading videos from Netflix into computer hard drives.?
- Blockchain is a distributive ledger where data is stored in large databases. Whenever an artist comes out with his art, the data regarding its creation, date of production, and author name are all stored in a database secured by blockchain technology. Once data is stored, it is immutable. The activities, such as how many downloads are made and by whom will be monitored. The data can track the specifics of the duplicate copy and information about the source if someone tries to copy and share it.
- Watermarks are trademarks or special identifiers of the author and are used to mark the ownership of the intellectual property and track the activities in case someone tried to duplicate it. Digital watermarking is to insert some differentiating data into the original without disturbing the context. The data inserted can be some binary numbers, biometrics, and many more. When certain data needs to be hidden, encrypted or protected from unauthorized users, this process is used. The military, businesses, and others frequently employ this technique for copyright protection, DRM protection, fingerprinting, digital forensics, etc.
- Access control and copy control permissions are the certain measure software that identifies the original work to the author and the duplicate work to its culprit/offender.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act:
Congress passed DMCA in 1998. It is an amendment of the USA's DMCA act used to protect copyrights and provide a certain structure to the use and misuse of copyright data. The three amendments made were as follow:
i) protecting online service providers against the users copying or downloading data that come under copyright infringement
ii) encouraging copyright holders to provide wide-scale access to users for them to feel that services are for them and they need not go to unethical ways of getting data
iii) false copyright information comes under unlawful practices
As digitalization grows, there are more uncertainties and issues with protecting digital data and ensuring law enforcement. To avoid copyright infringement and safeguard ownership rights and laws, legal systems are working to adopt international standards and make amendments to their existing laws. But given the constant influx of new information and difficulties, this is an endless race.
