- Details
- Category: Art and Technology
Piracy is described as the use of a creative piece without permission from the appropriate authority whether the person that created the work or the body in charge of distributing the work. For intellectual works, piracy is otherwise known as plagiarism.
Digital piracy means piracy over the Internet. With increased innovations in technology, a wider platform has been created for sharing creative works over the Internet or with similar non-Internet-based file sharing platforms.
What constitutes piracy?
These days, it seems like the lines have been blurred between what constitutes as piracy and what isn't piracy. As earlier noted, any form of distribution of creative works without permission from the right authority is piracy. Even with platforms such as Spotify where users can stream artistic content for free with appropriate permission from the rightful authorities, there is a high rate of sharing such content illegally.
Digital piracy has since proceeded from the level of burning artistic pieces into discs to sharing them or downloading them from legal and illegal sites. Both legal and illegal sites for downloading music and other forms of arts earn revenues from advertising due to the level of traffic they attract. None of these earnings, however, gets to the artist or the establishment authorized to distribute the creative pieces.
How has digital piracy affected artists?
Artists are affected in several ways by digital piracy, both in the good and bad ways. The benefits accrued by artists from digital piracy is, however, the only aspect which most people consider. We will be considering both the pros and cons of digital piracy with respect to the artist.
A major benefit of digital piracy is the increased promotion that comes with it. When the works of artists are pirated, more persons have access to them and more people thus get to know the artist. It is even argued that without digital piracy, several forms of arts and several artists will not receive as much attention as they do today.
The increased attention received by artists because of piracy also helps in the generation of other forms of revenues. For example, when the fan base of an artist is increased because of piracy, they can then gross more revenue from tours and concerts.
However, the increased revenue from a larger fan base does not apply to all artists. Upcoming artists with a small fan base, in most cases, never get to benefit from the extra publicity that comes with piracy. Thus, such artists only get to see the negative end of digital piracy which is reduced revenue.
Several talented artists struggle with creating a brand and identity, and digital piracy does not encourage them in any way. Increased piracy also means fewer revenues for even the biggest players and thus fewer investments in talent discovery and development.
Although digital piracy in its different forms has made art more accessible and appreciated by a wider audience, there are also several other consequences of digital piracy.
