A Free Educational Resource Created by Carnegie Mellon University to Empower You to Secure Your Part of Cyberspace

Cyberpiracy

Using the Internet to copy a digital document without authorization

Cyberpiracy has two different meanings in the cybersecurity community:

  • The general definition of cyberpiracy is any instance where the Internet is used to copy a digital document without authorization. Some examples of cyberpiracy include: copying and distributing music or video without the copyright holder’s permission, using cloned credit card information to steal from an online store, or copying software onto a CD without paying for it.

  • A more specific use of the term is in the phrase "trademark cyberpiracy" (a.k.a. cybersquatting). This is when somebody tries to make money by registering, selling, or using Internet domain names that belong to trademarks. An example of this is the teenager who registered the domain name www.appleimac.com  only two months after Apple released its iMac computer. Apple Corporation was able to sue this person on the basis of the Trademark Cyberpiracy Prevention Act .

Legal Issues

Ethical

One tends to think that large corporations like Microsoft or Adobe are so wealthy that copying one of their programs will not affect them. Nevertheless, such activity is a form of stealing. If it becomes widespread, its effects are like those of shoplifting: producers are forced either to stop issuing their product or price it higher to compensate for losses.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) applications are often used to trade music and video files with others. Since it is very hard to trace the source of one of these files, there is a good chance that a file you download with them will be an illegal copy.

Legal

Governments have created copyright laws to protect companies and artists. Copying CDs without permission or having software or music files that you didn’t pay for is illegal and could result in fines or jail time. The music industry is just one of many industries that have begun to crack down on cyberpiracy by filing lawsuits against those who make illegal copies.

The Trademark Cyberpiracy Prevention Act protects trademark holders from people who try to register domain names and make a profit off of the trademark holder.

References

Links

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