-How Much Does Piracy Really Hurt the U.S. Economy?

By: Jakelah Adolphine

Piracy And How It Affects The Economy

Have you ever heard of piracy? I’m sure that you have. Piracy is unauthorised use or duplication of music or movies by common people to earn a profit. Some experts estimate that piracy is costing the U.S economy between $200 and $250 billion per year. http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/how-much-do-music-and-movie-piracy-really-hurt-the-u-s-economy/

They also claim that it is responsible for 750,000 lost American jobs yearly. But as the article cited above states, no one really knows.

Piracy is mainly a problem for the entertainment and software industries, and therefore piracy most often involves violations of copyright law.

Copyright is a legal right that protects creative works from being reproduced, performed, or disseminated without permission of the copyright owner. Essentially, a copyright gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of the material in question.

But not everyone is a big fan of stopping piracy. Although most people know that piracy is wrong, they still do it. Some think they are doing it for a valid cause.

Some people pirate content because that’s the way they feed their family. Finding a job in today's economy can be hard, and some people are willing to do whatever it takes meet their needs.

Nowadays piracy is so popular, you don’t even need to be a computer genius to easily download illegal content. There are even websites with videos and instructions that tell you how. Even some ten-year-olds know how to pirate music.

Recent legal attempts aimed at stopping piracy have failed. But lawmakers and citizens are still asking questions like, "What actions will be taken to stop piracy?" "Why should anyone care about piracy?" and "What are the risks associated with using pirate software?"

Piracy affects the directors, actors, singers, and many more. Everyday they are losing profit from this piracy epidemic. How would you feel if you put so much hard work and effort, investing lots of money and time into a project and losing profits. Piracy is bad ! Copyright and intellectual property laws must be updated constantly to keep up with a rapidly changing world.