Online Piracy Essay

Words: 3014
Pages: 13

Assessment 1 - Essay

Online Communication

How can traditional (or old media) enterprises such as film, television and music overcome the threat of online piracy and file sharing?

Author: XXXXXXX Tutor: XXXXXXXX

The rise of the Internet era opened the whole new market for traditional media full of opportunities as well as threats. Online piracy being one of them because the music and film industry loses £5.4bn in a year and if it was reduced by 10% it could have created up to 13 thousand jobs in the UK. There are various attempts taken to fight with online piracy; a case study of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement will be considered as well as other legislations attempting to regulate copyrights in the Internet. This
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ACTA means Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement crafted by Japan and United States and signed by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea in October 2011. In January 2012 European Commission enter negotiations whether to sign the treaty, together with non-elected representatives from 22 Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Luxemburg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom. The European Commission says that ACTA is an international trade agreement aimed at ensuring the EU's already high standard of protection for intellectual property rights can be enforced globally. ACTA proved to be very controversial especially while in early 2012 it was meant to be signed by i.e. Poland. On announcement that the government is going to sign ACTA on the 26th January major protests and hacker attack on governmental websites emerged. The antagonists say that it is going to be the end of free internet and the freedom of speech is going to be limited there. The Act allows for the websites suspected of infringement to be taken down without a legal procedure and notification to the owner. The protagonists say that it is the only way for the music and film industry to stand a chance in the fight for copyright, as the other methods fail.
Another reason is that the semiotic problem confuses the public and one part of them