Research Question: Does the law adequately protect musicians from music piracy?

Information What is the development in What legal problems or What are the current rules and Are the laws adequate?(4) What are the laws overseas that
Required technology? (5) issues have emerged?(6) laws? we could adopt in Australia?
NSW, other states> (4) (4)

Source 1: Website, The Australian government has In the US, Google voluntarily
Gadget guy introduced the Copyright demotes pirated websites on the
https://www.gadget Amendment (Online number of US DMCA (Digital
guy.com.au/australi Infringement) Act 2018 (Act) to Millennium Copyright Act)
an-government-legi help prevent piracy by reducing notices it relieves.
slates-to-stop-conte the ability to pirate. The bill
nt-piracy/ compels ISPs, search engines
and more to block domain
names, URLs, and IP addresses
of piracy websites regardless of
location. Search engines will not
be able to provide search results.
This makes it harder for the
average Australian to download
pirated, copyrighted music. The
legislation requires references to
be completely taken from Google
if they are found to be pirated
sites.
Source 2: website, The US music industry Laws suggested to help prevent
WNS Article, Annually spends billions of music piracy- Stronger Ip
https://www.wns.co dollars on Anti-piracy rights and stronger
m/perspectives/artic measures only to lose 5 legislation-The industry needs
les/articledetail/706 billion dollars in revenue. to work closely with law
/three-strategies-for Causing pay issues and loss enforcement agencies to
-the-music-industry- of revenue for artists. identify and trace online pirate
to-fight-piracy services, bring stronger
litigations against perpetrators,
and engage governments and
judiciary systems to create an
environment that punishes
piracy. In 2012, such a legal
action closed down
megaupload.com, a Hong Kong
based company that ran online
file storage services.
Technologies to identify and
trace illegal distribution-
Music piracy happens because
of a collusion between two
parties – providers of illegal
content and providers of
file-sharing technologies. The
industry can tackle both of
them by developing new
watermarking methods that can
trace the source of illegal
distribution, and by working
with online stores to remove
infringing apps and restricting
their access to illegal websites.
Additionally, ISPs too could
keep tabs on the downloading
activity of accounts on their
bandwidth.
Search the web for pirated
content- The industry should
actively pursue cleansing
operations to eliminate
accidental piracy – where
music is distributed by
individuals without an intention
to indulge in piracy. With the
emergence of online platforms
for music collaboration such as
SoundCloud, which enables

its users to share and promote

their music, the onus of
ensuring that no
copyright-protected content
seeps out has fallen on the
labels.
Public awareness campaigns-
The National Geographic runs
a program to educate young
students about piracy. The
highlights of the program
include introducing the
concepts of piracy and
sensitizing individuals about
the impact that these crimes
have on the world economy.
This framework can be applied
to the public at large.
Redefine the Business Model-
by introducing freemium
models for unlimited music
access that does not cause loss
in the artists revenue. However
the revenue of a fremiums
model does change frequently
and artists paid lowley with on
average an artist getting
anywhere between $0.0033 -
$0.0054 cents per stream. This
diagram shows the revenue
fluctuation from freemium
models.

It has also been found that with

the recent lowering of
streaming prices it is found to
create more of a dent in piracy
With a recent study conducted
by Columbia University finding
that nearly a quarter of the
Internet users in the US would
willingly pay a monthly fee for
unlimited media access.
Source 3: website, Music piracy is evolving
RIAA (recording constantly as technology
industry association changes. People are able to
of america) copy or download music
from unauthorized sites
with a click of a button
because of the internet. It
is easiest for people to
knowingly or unknowingly
commit the crime of
pircacy
Some Common actions that
are committed, that can be a
legal issue known as piracy
include:
- You download an app on
your smartphone that allows
you to ‘strip’ the audio from
any YouTube music video
and permanently keep that
audio in your music
collection.
- You make an MP3 copy of
a song because the CD you
bought expressly permits
you to do so. But then you
put your MP3 copy on the
Internet, using a
file-sharing network, so that
millions of other people can
download it.
- Even if you don’t illegally
offer recordings to others,
you join a file-sharing
network and download
unauthorized copies of all
the copyrighted music you
want for free from the
computers of other network
members.
- In order to gain access to
copyrighted music on the
computers of other network
members, you pay a fee to
join a file-sharing network
U.S. copyright and piracy
protection law does in fact
provide full protection of sound
recordings, whether they exist
in the form of physical CD’s or
digital files. Regardless of the
format at issue, the same basic
principle applies: music sound
recordings may not be copied
or distributed without the
permission of the owner.
Making unauthorized copies of
copyrighted music (piracy)
recordings is against the law
and may subject you to civil
and criminal liability. A civil
lawsuit could hold you
responsible for thousands of
dollars in damages. Criminal
charges may leave you with a
felony record, accompanied by
up to five years of jail time and
fines up to $250,000.
 that isn’t authorized to
distribute or make copies of
copyrighted music. Then
you download unauthorized
copies of all the music you
want.
- You transfer copyrighted
music using an instant
messaging service.
- You have a computer with
a CD burner, which you use
to burn copies of music you
have downloaded onto
writable CDs for all of your
friends.
- Someone you don’t know
emails you a copy of a
copyrighted song, which
you forward to your friends.

Source 4: Website, The widespread of piracy
ITIF (information robs creators, publishers
technology and and distributors of their
innovative earnings and disincentives
foundation),​​ creativity and innovation in
https://itif.org/publi their industry. The
cations/2020/02/07/ technology also makes it
22-years-after-dmc accessible for all people to
a-online-piracy-still pirate, especially young
-widespread-proble people, who do not realize
m the danger in piraxy. With
a 2019 survey of 34,000
Internet users from around
In 2020 It was found that
piracy accounted for at
least $29.2 billion in lost
domestic revenues, 230,000
in lost American jobs, and
$47.5 billion in reduced
GDP. Increase in piracy
also saw revenue in the
music industry go from a
high of $14.6 billion in 1999
to $9.8 billion in 2018,
The digital millennium
copyright act formed in 1988
once an adequate law in
stopping the spread of piracy
has now become outdated and
is not adequate. The main two
issues with the act are 1. The
DMCA is not addressing the
problem of foreign piracy
websites. For example a well
known widespread song is
widely available on foreign
pircay websites and there is
 the world found that 23
percent of respondents use
illegal stream ripping sites,
which create downloadable
files of music “ripped”
from online streaming sites.
Illegal stream ripping is
especially popular among
young people: 34 percent
of 16- to 24-year-olds
admitted to doing it. As of
2018, 17 million of those
stream-rippers live in the
U.S., up from 15 million in
2017.
Source 5: Online Digital technologies led to
journal article, The growth in the music
southern Utah industry at first. The
university, internet then became
https://online.suu.ed advanced and more
u/degrees/business/ common websites such as
master-music-techn napster allowed users to
share and download any
little recourse for the
individual. (although after a
request to Google, some illegal
copies of the book are no
longer searchable). The act
does not prevent pirated
websites (which are clearly
focused on providing pirated
materials) from other nations
who have little interest in
preventing piracy to be taken
action against the
infringements.2. The DMCA is
focused on “notice and
takedown”- where content
owners can request internet
intermediaries to take down
infringing content, all while
other copies of the same
content are being reposted
elsewhere.
The big companies that
now constitute the bulk of
music industry sales, such
as spotify and I-tunes
revenues still haven’t
returned to levels prior to
the age of Napster.
ology/tech-impact- song they wanted through
music-industry/ file sharing platforms for
free.

Source 6- Online When piracy was first

Journal, JSTOR, introduced in the 1970s it
https://www.jstor.or was a difficult task to
g/stable/23416211 complete needing disks to
be created in a
manufacturing plant and
an actual copy of the song
to be owned to be put on
the disks that had to be
made and purchased to
then sell it by hand to a
person to then come and
collect it. The barriers of
such production make
music piracy non-existent.
Whether as with
technology advances
piracy is able to be done at
home in under 5 minutes
for the consumer to access
for free and online where
all they have to do is click
a few buttons.

Source 7: Website, In Australia under the Copyright

Australian Act 1968 it is considered a
Government, IP piracy offense to - knowingly
Australia import, possess, sell, distribute
https://www.ipaustr or commercially deal with an
alia.gov.au/ip-infrin infringing copy- - transmit a
gement/more-about- computer program to enable it to
ip-infringement/cou be copied when received.
nterfeiting-and-pira - offer for sale infringing copies
cy#:~:text=Penaltie of computer programs.
s%20include%20fin
With the punishment being
es%20of%20up,is%
Penalties including fines of up to
20up%20to%20five
$117 000 for individuals and up
%20years.
to $585 000 for corporations.
With the possible term of
imprisonment of up to five years.

Source 8: Forbes, In 2018 the copyright

online news article, infringement bill was created to
https://www.forbes. help avoid the spread of piracy
com/sites/emmawoo with the Australian minister
llacott/2018/11/29/a declaring "The passage of our
ustralia-tightens-on legislation today sends a strong
line-piracy-laws/?s message to online pirates that
h=6c46f1803d12 Australia does not tolerate
online theft." The bill holds
search browsers such as google
and bing accountable if a
banned site is linked. With the
bill also allowing copyright
owners to apply for injunctions
to force ISPs to prevent their
customers from accessing pirate
sites. With overseas file-hosting
sites being covered by the
 legislation, (because of a change
of wording in which those whose
'primary effect' is copyright
infringement, rather than just
those for which it's the 'primary
purpose'.) The bill is intended to
address doubts within the
current scheme, unintended
consequences of extending
website blocking practices are a
concern

Source 9: Global In the annual Global The drop in the music

Trade, online news Piracy Report, music theft industry's revenue due to
article, grew 14.7%. It was the music piracy saw the
https://www.globalt most prevalent in the compensation of an artist
rademag.com/how- United States. The cause drop severely with the label
blockchain-could-sa shows that Technology and now taking about 70 percent
ve-the-music-indust its maturity have played a of the purchase price and
ry-from-the-threat-o major role in people’s this leaves the artist with
f-technology/ ability to steal and only pennies from each
download tunes. The download.
widespread availability of
technology helping to
spread saw the music
industries revenue drop by
40% between 2001 and
2016 were the first increase
in revenue was seen
(5.9%.)
Source 10: Onyx In Australia the following
legal, Website, process occurs when a person
https://onyx.legal/ar or business files a copyright/
ticles/internet-pirac piracy infringement under the
y-laws-australia/ Copyright Amendment (Online
Infringement) Act 2018.
A copyright holder applies to
the Federal Court for an order
under section 115A of the
Australian Copyright Act,
introduced in June 2015. (The
biggest film and music
publishers in the world are
typical applicants.)
The applicant has to show that
the ISP enables access to
online content outside
Australia that has the main
purpose of making it possible
for people to infringe
copyright.The two key
provisions are:

● the infringing website

has to be located

outside Australia

(domain names,

hosting and ISPs were

all considered)
 ● The website has the

main purpose of

making it possible for

people to infringe

copyright.

Everyone comes to the party

when an anti-piracy claim is
made.
After the ISP is declared to
provide pirated material the
recent court decisions give
ISPs 15 days to disable access
to the domain names identified
in the orders. Only the mirror
sites identified in the orders
have to be blocked. Given that
there is often more than six
months delay in a claim being
filed and a decision coming
down from the court, pirate
sites will have ample time
between the start of
proceedings and the issuing of
orders to create new mirror
sites. The Court has kept the
right to review claims of mirror
sites under a new application
before additional orders can be
made. ISPs have to take
reasonable steps, and the
 orders remain in effect for 3
years.

Source 11: Wilkes The Digital Millennium

university, Website, Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998
https://www.wilkes. is a federal law that is designed
edu/about-wilkes/po to protect copyright holders
licies-and-procedur from online theft—that is, from
es/copyright.aspx the unlawful reproduction or
distribution of their works. With
the act protecting music,
movies, text and any- thing that
is copy- righted. With the
DMCA violations carrying
heavy civil and criminal
penalties. For example, civil
penalties include damages and
legal fees. The minimum fine is
$750 per downloaded file.
Criminal penalties, even for
first-time offenders, can be
stiff: up to $250,000 in fines
and five years in prison. Unless
served with a subpoena as
required under the DMCA, the
University does not release the
names of (or any personal
information about) subscribers
in the process of servicing a
DMCA notice.
Source 12: The Copyright Amendment
Parliament of (Online Infringement) Bill 2018,
Australia, Website, is an amendment of the
https://www.aph.go copyright act 1968. The bill
v.au/Parliamentary amends the threshold for
_Business/Bills_LE capturing overseas online
Gislation/Bills_Sear locations to those with the
ch_Results/Result?b primary purpose or effect of
Id=r6209 infringing copyright. Including a
rebuttable presumption that the
online location is outside
Australia. The bill is designed to
reduce burden on copyright
owners, by enabling them to seek
direction requiring online search
engine providers to take such
steps as the Federal Court
considers reasonable. Such as
not providing search results that
refer users to online locations
blocked under the scheme. The
bill allows the Federal court to
make blocking orders which
follow the copyright
infringement activity where
operators of an overseas online
location attempt to avoid the
application of a ruling by
creating new pathways to the
online location. Enabling the
minister to declare that
particular online search engine
providers be exempt from the
scheme.
Source 13: RIAA, Some legal problems and
Website, issues that music piracy in
https://www.riaa.co the states include The U.S.
m/reports/the-true-c economy loses $12.5 billion
ost-of-sound-record in total output annually as a
ing-piracy-to-the-u- consequence of music theft.
s-economy/ (the - Sound recording piracy
full report leads to the loss of 71,060
https://www.riaa.co jobs to the U.S. economy.
m/wp-content/uploa - Music theft also leads to
ds/2015/09/201205 the loss of $2.7 billion in
15_SoundRecording earnings annually in both
Piracy.pdf ) the sound recording
industry and in downstream
retail industries.
- The U.S. federal, state and
local governments lose a
minimum of $422 million in
tax revenues annually due to
piracy.
- $291 million of that $422
million represents lost
personal income taxes while
$131 million is lost
corporate income and
production taxes.
Source 15:MPA Solutions suggested to end the
(motian picture spread of pircay include-
association) Asia, - Target individual users of
Pacific, Website, piracy to try and educate them
https://www.mpa-ap on the dangers of piracy and
ac.org/2018/08/figh how it affects people,
ting-digital-copyrig - To attack the supply of pirated
ht-piracy-a-tripartit content distributed by seeking
e-solution-rights-ho to block content of commercial
lders-technology-fir scale infringers whose business
ms-governments-is- model is based on ripping off
needed/ the intellectual property of
others.
- The observed evidence shows
the best way to reduce the
economic harm caused by
digital piracy is through
combined anti-piracy efforts
from rightsholders, technology
firms and governments;
- Rights Holders can reduce
piracy and increase legal sales
by making legal content more
easily accessible in digital
channels and synchronizing
international release dates;
technology firms can respond
by making pirated content more
difficult to find on digital
platforms;
 - Governments can respond to
piracy by introducing
well-known and well-enforced
legal penalties against
individual pirates, by taking
action to shut down or
otherwise block Internet access
to prominent pirate sites.

Source 16: Go to The changes made by the

court, website, Copyright Amendment (Online
https://www.gotoco Infringement) Act 2018. Have
urt.com.au/civil-law seen a decline in illegal
/digital-piracy-copy downloading of material and
right-act/ an increase in the consumption
of paid streaming services.
However, surveys have found
that a large number of
Australians continue to engage
in digital piracy on a regular
basis. With the blocks having
made it harder to download
illegally, there are ways around
them, with new proxy sites
 going up faster than search
engine providers can block
them.

https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2017/2/212432-copyright-enforcement-in-the-digital-age/fulltext (case study mentioned)

Youtube Video “piracy it's a crime”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FtE0S-IyY0 (youtube video shown in website)