AS IAN C O LLEG E O F TEC HN O LO G Y — IN TEG R ATED SC HO O L
RESE AR CH R EPO RT
from the researchers
In November I set out to investigate how piracy hurts filmmakers and artists. And my findings are pretty telling. The tone was set in early November at the American Film Market (AFM) in Santa Monica, California, where independent studios pitch their films for financing and worldwide distribution. I met Arianne Fraser, CEO of Highland Film Group, and as soon as I touched on the topic of piracy, she reacted “Piracy is devastating to our business!” I also attended a roundtable discussion held by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, which is seeking input for a bipartisan review of copyright law. Jeffrey Greenstein, President of International Sales and Distribution at the independent studio Millennium Films / Nu Image, was part of the panel. He shared with the committee how Expendables 3, a summer 2014 movie with Sylvester Stallone, was stolen and leaked to pirates three weeks before its release. I independently verified that the movie has since been downloaded illegally 40 million times just on Bit Torrent sites, so adding the proportional share of illegal streams and other pirate sources, a reasonable total estimate is 70 million illegal views! Despite a successful shutdown of pirate site Popcorn Time in early November, it popped up again during Thanksgiving weekend. So it’s just not enough to battle the supply of piracy, as I have pointed out. Reducing demand for piracy is key, yet the biggest challenge may be to change a society that increasingly condones piracy. Can a culture of piracy be reverted?
Nelson Granados Executive Director Institute for Entertainment, Media, Sports and Culture at Pepperdine University
10— PE RSEV ERAN CE
S O F T WA R E What are the dangers and impacts of software piracy?
In an attempt to download a pirated software, you may land up on potentially dangerous websites, which can infect your PC with adware, bots and even a ransomware. According to a 2016 blog entitled Dangers of Using Pirated Software from a website called reveantivirus.com; when the device is infected or attacked, the malware sends out the sensitive credentials such as username, account number, password, etc to the third party. Apart from all these, it can also completely disable your PC. Next, the program or application may not work effectively and efficiently as pirated software are cracked versions. Hence,
PIRACY when you use these software to execute certain task, the accuracy and output will not be up to the desired standard. Most importantly, pirated software do not get updates released by the developer from time -to-time. These updates are necessary for proper functioning of the software and without it, you could be missing important updates, fixes, and security patches. Another risk is that, when using a pirated software may cause you severe repercussion by legal authorities. In accordance to the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, officially known as Republic Act No. 8293; copyright infringement is a crime which attracts huge penalty if caught.