THE DEEP WEB

WHAT IS THE DEEP WEB?

Most of what of us know as the internet is just the surface, this is in fact know as the surface web and only accounts for about 4% of the world wide web content. The Deep Web is the other 96% of the internet. You wont find it by hopping around on Google. You can read about it on the surface web, but until you dive in you might not really understand it's depth. The Deep Web is where many file sharing websites are hosted. It is here, in almost complete anonymity that pirates are able to share, distribute and acquire unlicensed materials. This is where the piracy happens. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Web

HOW DO I VIEW THE DEEP WEB?

In order to view the deep web you are going to need a bit of advanced computer knowledge. If you aren't fairly knowledgeable about computers I would advise staying off it as most internet service providers are looking to ban customers who use these types of applications, especially since the introduction of the six strikes policy. If interested you can access a great deal of information from the website i will link you to below.

http://torrentfreak.com/

WHO USES THE DEEP WEB?

Most people that use the deep web are pirates, hackers and other computer experts. Not all of the content there is illegal, or even malicious, but the average user has no idea how to access this information and no real need to use it. Also it is fairly easy for someone to get malicious material accidentally and end up destroying your system.

HOW DOES IT RELATE TO PIRACY?

The Deep Web allows for users to have access to huge archives of digital material. These databases house almost everything that any pirate would want. They are able to use the deep web to transfer these huge amounts of data in peer to peer networks. Using the deep web allows them to remain more anonymous than most internet activities. The Pirate Bay is just one of the many popular bit torrent websites that operate in the deep web.

http://torrentfreak.com/download-copy-of-the-pirate-bay-with-permission-130220/

Anti Piracy Efforts

Who is Involved in Anti-Piracy Efforts?

When most of us think of Anti Piracy efforts we probably think of government prevention. This is true, there are active government programs working to end piracy online. We thought it might be more interesting to show you the private market response to this though.The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), RIAA ( Recording Industry Artists of America, and multiple internet providers have joined together in an effort to stamp out piracy. They are focusing their efforts on bit torrent users. Their scheme is an effort known as the six strikes system. They will be repressing internet users access for repeated violations of copyright law. This effort is targeted at more casual file sharers as most advanced people are already taking efforts to mask their file sharing from their internet service providers.

 http://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-scheme-starts-130225/

What type of Penalties Exist?

The penalties, both legal and financial associated with piracy can be very harsh. They are mostly designed to deter people from engaging in the act. They are often difficult to enforce, especially for the United State Government, because so much of the piracy happens overseas. Nonetheless, people have been arrested, fined and even imprisoned for copyright violations. 

In 2009 The FBI conducted a breakup of a major file sharing ring known as the "Warez" scene. This has become to be known as Operation Fastlink. They have made 60 convictions to date in this case. The penalties in this case are a possible five years in Federal Prison, $250,000 in fines and up to 3 years of supervised release (probation). This is by no means the only operation the FBI has run, but it is a good idea of what penalties exist.

http://www.fbi.gov/newhaven/press-releases/2009/nh030609b.htm

How Do You Report Piracy?

You can report piracy to the FBI via the website I will link below. It is known as the Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3 for short. They have a form that you can fill out to report piracy. They currently working to eliminate a specific malware threat that has targeted people and redirected them to a website similar to theirs ordering people to pay a fine in order to have their computer frozen. It is pretty crazy that not even they are immune to the effects of internet piracy, malware, or identity theft attempts. 

http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

Why Should I Care?

You may be asking yourself, Why would I care about anti piracy efforts? IWe understand most of you are college students with limited financial resources. It may not be affordable for you to buy all the music you enjoy listening to, and we can sympathize. But, Piracy affects all of us negatively. You may not grasp why a particular Microsoft program costs hundreds of dollars, well you are paying for other peoples copyright infringements. Software companies lose millions to piracy every year. They have to make what money they can legally so they have to charge more. Same goes for the motion picture and recording industries. If we can all work together to battle Piracy we can collectively steer people towards legal alternatives and hopefully lower the price of intellectual property.

Film Piracy

What is Film Piracy?

Much like software and music piracy, film piracy is the illegal downloading and distribution of unlicensed material. Film Piracy occurs on a global scale and costs the film industry billions of dollars every year. Pirated films can be found almost anywhere, from online to DVD distribution at the street level. A major reason for the popularity of film piracy is the expense of going to the movies or purchasing a DVD. 

DVD Distribution

DVD Film Piracy has its roots in the VHS platform. VHS tapes were easily reproduced, much more so than traditional reel film. This caused a lage rise in the pirated material. When the DVD appeared on the market in the 90's it became even easier for people to mass produce DVD's and sell them illegally. This method is widely seen overseas and in major cities.

Online Distribution

In the last 15 years Film Piracy has moved to the internet. Many websites and peer to peer networks are involved in the trading of films. This practice is highly illegal and bears stiff penalties. Some popular sites for this include Pirate Bay. Most of these web sites are part of the deep web, which we will be talking about in our next blog. Online piracy has grown so much that recently a new record was set, the season finale of Game of Thrones was simultaneously streamed by 170,000 people. 

http://torrentfreak.com/games-of-thrones-season-finale-sets-new-piracy-record-130610/

Most anyone with any advanced computer knowledge has little problem finding any movie or TV show they like. These are not limited to films that have been released to DVD already, many that are still in theaters are among the most popular.

According to Torrent Freak the following are the 10 most pirated films for the week ending June 9, 2013
Week ending June 09, 2013
Ranking (last week) Movie IMDb Rating /
torrentfreak.com
1 The Hangover Part 3 (R6/TS) 6.3
2 Dead Man Down 6.6
3 Jack The Giant Slayer 6.6
4 Iron Man 3 (R6) 8.0
5 21 And Over 5.7
6 The Incredible Burt Wonderstone 5.9
7 Fast and Furious 6 (Cam) 7.7
8 Hammer Of The Gods 5.9
9 Epic (TS) 6.8
10 Stoker 7.3
http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-130610/

Anti Piracy Efforts

You may think that downloading movies is harmless. The cost of going to the movies is high, but rest assured it is much cheaper than the lifetime of costs you will pay if you are caught downloading or uploading illegal films. Uploading one of these films is a federal felony, and could cost you thousands.  It is currently estimated that online film piracy is costing the United States economy 20.5 billion anually. 

http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/putting-a-price-tag-on-film-piracy-1228/

How many of you have ever seen a pirated film?
Have you downloaded one yourself?
Do you think Film Piracy is detrimental or helpful to the film industry? This is a hotly debated topic

Software Piracy

What is Software Piracy?

With the term piracy floating around with music, movies and games exactly what is software piracy? Well, we do know that piracy “is the unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material”, so “software piracy is the unauthorized copying and use of software.” Some examples of popular software programs are Microsoft Office, Excel or Adobe Photoshop.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/software_piracy.html

User Licensing

Just about every program you purchase is licensed for your personal use with a User license. That is a license that allows access to the specific software to a set number of users. Every time you install the software, it will be counted but every install of the software on multiple devices (i.e. your PC, your laptop or tablet) will only count as one license. When you purchase the software, you become an authorized licensed user not an owner. You can make backup copies of the software, but it is unlawful to make copies with the intention of giving or selling those copies to whomever you choose.
http://blogs.flexerasoftware.com/elo/2011/06/common-software-license-types-and-terms.html

How is Software Pirated?

Software is normally pirated via peer to peer ftp (file transfer protocol) networks. According to the Software alliance 42% of all PC software packages were pirated in 2011. It is estimated that 80% of this material is counterfeit. These software packages are often laced with computer viruses and malware. This malware can be responsible for identity theft. This is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world.

THE COST

The cost of software piracy is skyrocketing out of control. Not only does it costs the businesses that produce software, it costs businesses millions of dollars to fix the damage cause by pirated software. IDC (International Data Corporation) estimates that 1.5 billion consumer hours worldwide will be lost in dealing with the malware spread via software piracy.They estimate that the costs of dealing with the malware spread from Piracy is $114 billion, the loss form data breaches could be $350 billion. This is a scope of astronomical proportions and it is only getting worse.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/download/presskits/antipiracy/docs/IDC030513.pdf

How many of you actually have kept any software you purchased strictly for your own use? 
Have any of you sold, given copies of or posted to the internet any software you bought? 
Have you downloaded any software off the internet?

Piracy in the Music Industry

Piracy in the Music Industry

Most of us are very familiar with the issue of music piracy. I think it would be safe to say that most of us have downloaded a song or two without proper compensation to the rights holder. This has been the most visible form of piracy that most of us have dealt with.

Napster

In 1999 a music sharing service came about known as Napster. Napster allowed users to upload and download any music they wished. This was especially popular on college campuses where student had access to high speed internet. The appeal of Napster is that it was a very user friendly interface, making it easy for anyone with any small amount of computer skill to upload and download music and movies.
Napster was shut down on many college campuses as a result of it tying up network traffic. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster)

Legal Challenges to Napster

In 2000 the legal challenges against Napster began to flow in. One of the most vocal opponents to Napster was the band Metallica, Dr Dre also joined in suit against Napster. Eventually the Ninth Circuit of Courts, a United States Federal Court, forced Napster to shut down. This was the first case of a record label suing a peer to peer file sharing network.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB981994149132463723.html

LimeWire

LimeWire is another major peer to peer file sharing network. As of October 26, 2010 they have been ordered to stop distributing the LimeWire software. They demand that "any person downloading or uploading copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so" .http://www.limewire.com/
LimeWire is a bit torrent client, peer to peer file sharing, that also uses the Gnutella network. Gnutella is  the largest peer to peer network. LimeWire is known for the abundance of computer viruses embedded in the files. This made it much more unpopular among less knowledgeable users.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LimeWire

iTunes

iTunes has been widely adopted and supported by the RIAA (Recording Industry Artists of America). This service is preferred by the music industry because users are forced to pay for the music they wish to download. These payments are used to pay royalties to the artists. The popularity of iTunes has fueled Apples growth. More people have Apple devices (iPod, iPhone) to mange their music than any other MP3 Player.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes

Music Piracy Today

Music Piracy does still exist today, but not to the extent that it did 10 years ago. Today, more people are paying for their music than ever before. Most of the music sharing is done outside of the US. You are more likely to find pirated music on the streets of Asia, than here. This is form not only the rise in iTunes, but with more stringent enforcement of copyright violation laws.

THE FOLLOWING IS STRAIGHT FROM THE RIAA WEBSITE: THEY SAY IT BEST SO WE JUST WANTED TO QUOTE THEM DIRECTLY. WE PROVIDE THIS QUICK GUIDE TO HELP YOU AVOID PROSECUTION FROM PIRACY

"WHAT IS ONLINE PIRACY?
Music theft is a real, ongoing and evolving challenge. Both the volume of music acquired illegally without paying for it and the resulting drop in revenues are staggering. Digital sales, while on the rise, are not making up the difference.

Common Examples of Online Copyright Infringement:

You make an MP3 copy of a song because the CD you bought expressly permits you to do so. But then you put your MP3 copy on the Internet, using a file-sharing network, so that millions of other people can download it.
Even if you don’t illegally offer recordings to others, you join a file-sharing network and download unauthorized copies of all the copyrighted music you want for free from the computers of other network members.
In order to gain access to copyrighted music on the computers of other network members, you pay a fee to join a file-sharing network that isn’t authorized to distribute or make copies of copyrighted music. Then you download unauthorized copies of all the music you want.
You transfer copyrighted music using an instant messenging service.
You have a computer with a CD burner, which you use to burn copies of music you have downloaded onto writable CDs for all of your friends.
Somebody you don’t even know e-mails you a copy of a copyrighted song and then you turn around and e-mail copies to all of your friends."http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=What-is-Online-Piracy

How many of you have illegaly downloaded music? If so, Do you still do it? If not, what made you stop or why have you never done it?

What is Piracy?

                                       (www.boston.com)

What is Piracy?

If you were to look up the meaning of this word, the first definition of piracy you will come across is that it is defined as a robbery committed at sea, but somehow I don't think that applies in our class, so scratch that,  unless of course you have the eye patch, sword and talking parrot! Let's focus on another definition of piracy
which is "the unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material". http://www.thefreedictionary.com/piracy

Basically, any material that is being transmitted over the internet that you have not personally paid for could possibly be considered pirating.

Many items fall under the protection of public domain, but this is not a legal class so we will not get too specific on that front.

Our first point of emphasis is to decide who is considered a pirate. There are three main categories here. Hosts, who hold and source the products. Couriers, who move the product along the back logs of the internet and end users who reap the benefits of pirated material.

The internet is a lot more than what you just see on webpages. These webpages are just the surface of the deep sea that is the internet. Most piracy is committed in what is known as "The Deep Net". It is also referred to as "The Deep Web".  The deep net is not easily accessed or navigated by most internet users. It requires a higher level of computer knowledge and resources. You can not get to the deep web via Google; meaning if you don't know where to look, you will never find it.

How many people have used the Deep Web?
How many people have even heard of the Deep Web?
Have you ever acquired any material for "free"?

(image crystalcastles.com)