What are Internet Pirates?

Where do pirates like to shop the most? Taaaarrrrget! Okay, I know that's a bad joke (and probably doesn't make much sense outside the US and western Europe), but today we're looking at what, exactly are Internet pirates. They get discussed in the media, laws made against them, and are blamed by some to be the cause of all of the music industry's problems. You may be an internet pirate and not even know it!

"Internet pirate" is a term for someone who steals items from the internet instead of buying them through legitimate channels. This can be music, movies, software, or anything else digital. The term "internet pirate" became popular when Napster was at its peak and people were downloading music left and right. Have you ever downloaded a song from a program like Napster, Limewire, or Bearshare? These are all programs that are designed to allow people to share large files between each other, but people have taken over to share large copyrighted files between them and millions of strangers.

I've noticed an uptick in parents unknowingly pirating songs because their children download a program like Limewire on the computer and tell them that it's a place they can get music, TV shows and movies for free. They don't tell them that it's illegal, that they can be fined thousands of dollars, that it's a good way to get computer viruses, and/or have their internet provider refuse them further service. How can you know if you've been accidentally stealing your content? Did you pay for it? Did the maker of content explicitly say they're giving it away for free? If the answer is "no" to those questions, you've been pirating content!

Practical Tip of the Day:

As previously stated, pirating content is a good way to get viruses, malware, corrupted files and content you do not want (like porn instead of a TV show) downloaded onto your computer. Because of these as well as the legal and ethical reasons, I strongly discourage pirating. Where should you go to get these things then? iTunes, Amazon and Google Play are the three biggest content providers on the Internet. And yes, you have to pay.

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What are Internet Pirates?

Pirates of yore would sail around the world, fighting, drinking, stealing, and in general being bad people. There are still pirates today, and while some are still naval-based, others are no different than the person next to you in the grocery store. Internet pirates don't have to leave the house, and some have never even been on a boat.

"Internet pirate" is a general term for anyone who acquires and/or shares other people's works online. The most commonly pirated types of works are TV shows, movies, and music. In the late 90's, Napster became very common, and people were sharing and downloading music as often as they checked their email. Some people didn't even know what they were doing was illegal. As access to the Internet became faster, eventually people began sharing videos, though at this point Napster had been all but shut down. People simply moved on to the next file-sharing site.

While downloading copyrighted material off the internet is illegal, it is doubtful that the FBI will be knocking down your door to take your computer and lock you up. What is most common for the internet pirate who's been caught is to receive a letter in the mail asking them to pay some large sum of money to make up for perceived lost revenue for the companies who's material you've downloaded. This can be more than a little startling for people who receive these letters, as often they're young people or unwitting parents of teenagers. Sometimes these letters even go to people who haven't pirated anything, but people who left their wireless network unprotected, and a neighbor has used their network instead.

Practical Tip of the Day:
If you use a wireless router (if you do not need to plug your internet into your computer), make sure it has a secure password on it. If you leave your wireless network with either no password, or a simple password ("admin", "abc123" or "password") you leave yourself open for people to use your internet to do whatever they want with. While receiving letters to pay for music you didn't steal is on the mild end, there have also been stories of elderly people and families being accused of things as serious as sharing child pornography because someone was using their network unbeknownst to them.