Piracy in the United States One of the biggest debates in the recent history of the US has been the ongoing attempts to stop illegal intellectual property theft. The two legislations Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) recently tried to be passed through the US Congress. These two acts in an effort to permanently stop all online piracy, would’ve essentially changed the face of the internet as we know it. 90 - 95% of websites would be shut down or fined all to combat piracy. The large uproar from corporations and citizens stopped SOPA and PIPA in their tracks on their way throught Congress, but it does raise an interesting problem. Is piracy actually wrong?
To begin with, piracy of media doesn’t have the same scarcity attached to it that a stolen car would. Stealing music doesn’t stop others from listening to it, so the actual stealing of the music doesn’t harm the consumer. The only real argument that can be made is that pirating media deprives the original artist of compensation for their own work. But, in some cases like HBO’s popular “Game of Thrones,” online piracy has actually helped the show be more successful. With rising prices from larger cable companies, the HBO exclusive show would only reach a limited audience if never pirated. However, due to the millions of pirated episodes, the viewer base of the show is close to triple what it would’ve been. This massive increase in viewers helps sell the numerous merchandise produced to market the series.
In addition to the potential benefits of piracy being legal, there is also the added factor that a large amount of money is used to try to combat piracy. Despite the efforts, peer-to-peer file sharing websites like BitTorrent and the Pirate Bay continue to thrive. When SOPA and PIPA were