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12.6 Intellectual Property Law and Copyright Infringement 397

Table 12.5 Intellectual property laws and the protections of intellec- File Sharing
tual property
Laws Protection provided by the law One of the major methods of violating copyrights is file shar-
Intellectual property law Protects the creative work of people ing. File sharing became popular in the late 1990s through
Patent law Protects inventions and discoveries facilitating companies such as Napster. One of the players in
Copyright law Protects original works of authorship, this area is The Pirate Bay (see the closing case to this chap-
such as music and literary works, artistic ter). The loss to copyright holders is estimated to be several
design and writing computer codes
billion dollars annually. The Recording Industry Association
Trademark law Protects trademarks, logos, etc. of America (RIAA) is fighting back.
Trade secret law Protects proprietary business
information
Law of licensing Enables owners of intellectual property Examples
to share it via licensing The file-sharing business is a major target of the RIAA, which
Law of unfair Protects against those who use illegal or shut down popular sites LimeWire LLC and Kazaa. Additionally,
competition relating to unfair methods, or methods not available another popular file-sharing site, Megaupload.com, was shut
counterfeiting and to others. Also against those pirating down in January 2012. However, the site was re-launched in
piracy intellectual property
January 2013 under the domain name mega.co.nz.

Recording Movies, Shows and Other Events Legal Aspects of Infringement

A common method of infringement is to bring video cameras In November 2010, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
and video-capable cell phones to movie theaters and record the approved the controversial Combating Online Infringement
performances. PirateEye (pirateeye.com) is one of the compa- and Counterfeits Act (COICA) that provides the Attorney
nies that manufacture devices that discover and identify the General with the power to shut down websites without a trial
presence of any digital recording device, monitor remotely in or court order if copyright infringement is considered to be
real time, and much more. the “central activity of the site.” The problem is that, under
For intellectual property in social media, see Kankanala this bill, most business websites are considered publishers
(2015). (e.g., even when publishing an online sales brochure), and
may be subject to disruptive investigations.
Copyright Infringement and Protection
The RIAA Industry Versus the Violators
Numerous high-profile lawsuits already have been filed regard-
ing online copyright infringement related to EC and the Web. To protect its interests, the RIAA uses selective lawsuits to
A copyright is an exclusive legal right of an author or creator stamp out rampant music piracy on the Internet. However,
of intellectual property to publish, sell, license, distribute, or the RIAA spent more than $58 million in pursuit of targeted
use such work in any desired way. In the United States, con- infringers between 2006 and 2008, yet collected less than
tent is automatically protected by federal copyright laws as $1.4 million (less than about 2%) from judgments.
soon as a work is produced in a tangible shape or form. A Note, since 2009, the number of lawsuits has been declining
copyright does not last forever; it is good for a set number of for several reasons. Viacom sued YouTube (Google) for $1 bil-
years after the death of the author or creator (e.g., 50 years in lion copyright violation. In 2013, Viacom lost its case against
the United Kingdom). After the copyright expires, the work YouTube (the appellate court ruled in favor of Google). Finally,
reverts to the public domain (or becomes publicly available). pending copyright infringement lawsuits are not favored
See fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public- domain and the- because they are lengthy and very costly. As an alternative to
publicdomain.org. In many cases, corporations own copy- direct lawsuits, the entertainment industry has begun develop-
rights. In such a case, the copyrights will last 120 years, or ing digital rights management (DRM) policies to be enforced
even longer. The legal term for the use of a work without through the court system as well through federal legislation.
permission or contracting for payment of a royalty is copy-
right infringement. Globalization
Much of the media piracy occurs in other countries (e.g.,
Example Russia, China, and Sweden, and many developing countries).
An artist made $90,000 by selling someone’s Instagram Therefore it is difficult to combat piracy, as per the closing
photo without permission. See Instagram (Instagram 2015). case of Pirate Bay.