Mba 560 Legal Concepts

MBA / 560

Legal concepts

Legal Concepts Worksheet

Concept Application of Concept to the Issue of Downloading Reference to Concept in Reading

Piracy

The downloading of illegal music and movie’s is considered piracy.

I have personally experienced this from using share-ware such as Kazaa and other controversial sharing software. I once downloaded a movie and my internet provider cut my internet access because of a copyright violation. I was warned that any further downloading would have my internet shut-down permanently and possible legal action. What I had done was commit an act of piracy by downloading the movie from a free site.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) requires countries to upgrade their intellectual property laws to protect patents and copyrights and to guard against the piracy of items such as computer software and videotapes.

Piracy, rampant on college campuses, continues to hurt retailers, musicians, producers, record labels and thousands of less-celebrated individuals involved in making music (Lemke, 2004). “The WTO requires countries to upgrade their intellectual property laws to protect patents and copyrights and to guard against the piracy of items such as computer software and videotapes”

(Reed, 2005, ch.18).

Copyright Law

Copyrights and property are very much the same. In today’s technologies’ piracy over the internet has become the largest area for copyright infringement. This problem is global especially in more advanced countries such as the U.S. and U.K.

The issue of how creators and copyright owners are rewarded for their efforts are being studied for potential changes to the UK's intellectual property laws, Recommendations will involve creating an exception in copyright law for "private copying"--ie, people copying their CD collections on to their iPods ( Arnold, 2005)

Some believe that formalizing such an exception is a distraction from the real issue of how governments, music creators, law enforcement and technology providers work together to stamp out illegal file-sharing that undermines the value-creation process and effectively gives people the opportunity to seize something for nothing.

Copyrights and trademarks are rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights of the Constitution and are also a basis in federal cases. This can fall under public and private law (Reed, 2005, ch. 3).

Legal Sanctions

Over the past few years movie piracy has cost the film industry billions of dollars, with 2005 alone estimated at over $18 billion globally. These costs have made resolving this problem a key priority for many major Hollywood studios and industry participants who have seen the piracy problem taking a bigger and bigger share of their box office returns. The same is true for the music industry which claims to lose hundreds of millions of dollars each year because of global pirating of movies and music.

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“Members of the WTO are subject to legal sanctions from the WTO if copyright laws are ignored by members or not enforced. The WTO further restricts tariffs on textiles, apparel, and forest products. It also requires countries to upgrade their