How Music has fought Piracy online?
With the advent of the Internet and other digital technologies, online piracy has grown into a significant concern for all types of copyright owners, including publishers. It can be challenging to determine how much publishers should focus on the piracy of their publications and articles and whether, if they go too far trying to protect themselves, they run the risk of alienating some of their best customers. What happens when millions of people routinely infringe your copyrights? You can’t sue them all. And even if you did, most of them don’t have any money. It’s time for the industry to change its one-dimensional outlook and adopt a new perspective to fighting piracy.
1. Register your work Liable for Copyrights
Although there is not a dire need to register your work with the Copyright Office for the work is protected by copyrights law, there are many benefits to doing so. Registration establishes a public record that the owner claims a copyright interest. In addition, registering the work within the first three months of publication or prior to an infringement enables you to obtain your attorney fees and statutory damages. Since you can’t sue an infringe in federal court without first registering the work with the Copyright Office, you might as well get it done at the outset. The application process is inexpensive and easy.
2. Place Copyright symbol
Just as the copyright registration, placing a copyright notice on your work is not necessary. However, including a copyright notice on your works is quite easy to do and provides several benefits. It indicates that copyright is claimed in a work and you are the owner. Placing a proper copyright notice on your work also prevents pirates from claiming to be innocent infringes. This may even result in a higher damage price that an infringe would pay.
3. Understand the Customer Needs
You need to accept that the future is legitimate customers, who simply refuse to pay more than they already do for your products. In fact, they’ll probably want to pay less, not because they can get it for free, but because they just have so many options to get it legitimately. An example would prove this point. Why would somebody buy a DVD for a movie they can stream on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, if they just wait? Nowadays, streaming is easy and affordable for customers. A minute change in business strategies can help prevent privacy.
4. Digitize Everything
After the release, you can yourself put it on sale before it gets pirated. It doesn’t matter if it hasn’t seen the light of day since two weeks after its release, put it out there for sale. Because we guarantee you somebody, somewhere, wants to buy it, and when they can’t they pirate it. You’ve got to meet your customers halfway here. Once a movie hits DVD, it should also be on Netflix, or Amazon and available for digital download. Once a TV show airs, it needs to be on Hulu a minute after the broadcast ends. There’s no excuse for this to not happen. This would definitely decrease the piracy rate and help you earn more money.
5. Prune the Internet
Internet helps you to know whether and how others are making pirated copies of your publications that are available online. It’s absolutely your call to take any action against piracy; but with an online monitoring service like MarkMonitor or Attributor you can collect information about the extent of your piracy problem. Even one of your employees with the help of a search engine scour the Internet for your products to see where they pop up and what people are doing with them — illegally or otherwise. You’ll be spared of employing a monitoring service in this case.
When you monitor the internet and see file-sharing activity, you can only link the piracy to an IP address. So you first need to go to court to force the internet service provider to tell you who is using that IP address, and then you need to actually sue the infringe. It doesn’t seem right to sue young music fans who might, in other ways, be good customers of the music industry.
6. Three-strike method
The three-strike system is a variation on suing the file-sharers. This system makes it easier for the rights owners and cuts more slack for the infringes. Under three-strikes, rights owners ask internet service providers to send warning letters to suspected file-sharers, telling them their file-sharing has been spotted, that this is illegal, and that they could be sued if they continue infringing. The ISP doesn’t reveal the identity of the alleged infringe, but passes on the warnings. The motive is to keep sending ever sterner warning letters to the file-sharer and if they don’t comply by a certain point, that is after three warnings, some action would be taken against them.
7. Blocking the websites
Web-blocking has become a preferred anti-piracy tactic nowadays. Instead of actually suing the piracy set-up, you go to court to get an injunction that forces internet service providers to block access to the offending site, that is people in the local jurisdiction will no longer be able to reach the piracy service. The court considers whether the accused service is liable for infringement, and if judges decide that there is liability, they issue the web-block injunction.
8. Collect Infringed Money
Some piracy sites are run as profit-making enterprises, and even those run on a not-for-profit basis will have some basic costs to cover. Such operations will usually make money by carrying advertising, selling subscriptions or taking donations. Much effort has been made in recent years to try to cut off these income streams, by encouraging brands and ad networks to ensure their adverts never appear on piracy sites. Also by persuading credit card and online payment processing companies ensures that they aren’t taking money on behalf of copyright infringing set-ups.
9. Public awareness campaigns
Programs to educate young students about piracy is a must in response to the cyber crimes that take place. The highlights of the program include introducing the concepts of piracy and sensitizing individuals about the impact that these crimes have on the world economy. This framework can be applied to the public at large.
10. Satisfy Your Customers
It is ultimately the customers you aim for, and suing potential customers would lead your fan lose interest and faith on you. They think you view them as dangerous thieving slime to be dragged into court at the least provocation. And worst of all, you act like a bully to demand premium prices for pirated copies. So, listen to what your customers have to say, and, more importantly, act on it.
