Henry Ford once said:

It’s the same with copyright infringement. The moment the concept of copyright appeared in the 17th century, people started to mess with it.

Back then, it meant the illegal printing of books. Nowadays, we use the phrase internet piracy for all types of media theft - music, movies, games… and books. Yeah, they are still on the list.

In this post, I’m going to share how internet piracy came to life and what the future could hold.

The History

1980s-1990s

Piracy actually predates the internet.

The moment floppy disks ( you know, the save icon, but IRL ) were rarely available, people started to use them to share music and video games with others.

In the early days of the Internet, piracy was common in online forums and through file sharing via IRC ( Internet Relay Chat ) and Usenet newsgroups. This was the same process as uploading a link to Reddit today.

However, a significant milestone in the history of internet piracy was the creation of Napster in 1999. It was a peer-to-peer ( P2P ) file-sharing network that focused primarily on music, making it easy for people to download songs.

How it worked:

1. Napster had servers but only for indexing the files available. ( Like an Excel sheet )

2. If your computer was online and had Napster opened, people could download the music file you indexed on Napster.

3. User across the world downloaded the music file, and it became available on their computer too.

This convenience led to a massive surge in internet piracy and legal battles. As you can imagine, music labels were PISSED.

So, they eventually forced Napster to shut down in 2001.

2000s

After Napster shut down, other peer-to-peer (P2P) networks like Kazaa, Limewire, and BitTorrent became popular.

These networks were decentralized, making it difficult for legal authorities to enforce laws.

BitTorrent, which is a P2P protocol, became the leading platform for sharing large files, such as movies, software, and games. Websites like The Pirate Bay facilitated this but faced several legal challenges and attempts to shut them down. The founder even faced jail time.

2010s-2020s

How and why did internet piracy slow down? Because of convenience.

Services like Netflix and Spotify made it easier to watch your favorite show or listen to songs on their platform than to take time to download them.

They also priced themself competitively. $10-15 dollars a month was way cheaper than having a cable subscription or paying $1.30 for every song on iTunes.

It was a nice utopia until big media corporations started to envy Netflix.

Nowadays, more people watch streaming services than cable television, so conglomerates like Disney and HBO decided to stop licensing their movies and shows to Netflix and start their own platforms.

Now, people are pushed to have multiple subscriptions and spend more and more money every month.

The Future

With the rise of subscription service prices and content being distributed on many different channels, people are back to the good old pirating days.

Going back to the quote from Henry Ford, car racing will never stop if we have more than one vehicle in the world. In my opinion, piracy and copyright infringement will also never go away.

Just the existence of paywalls will always ensure their survival.

If authorities want to push back on it, they have all right to do so because downloading a movie is as much of a theft as stealing a car. If your whole business model is selling counterfeit copies of Mamma Mia, you are a criminal, and you have to face charges.

However, I don’t think punishing everyday users should be the goal. We all had a time in our lives when we couldn’t afford a Netflix subscription or a game.

So what to do then?

I much more like the clever ways some developers fight against piracy.

Animal Crossing is a famous example when they created a whole new framework against illegal players.

The game will let you play for a few hours, but at some point, the game characters will start calling you out and eventually delete all your progress.

I’m happy that the Sims team didn’t have something similar in place back in the early 2000s, but a little nudge on the head is a much better way to communicate morals than fear of legal reprocations.

Is Piracy Bad Anyway?

Stealing art is objectively bad, right?

Some people say that watching a new Disney movie doesn’t count as the Mouse is already swimming in money, which is true. But if the company makes less money, it will be also less willing to sponsor smaller, up-and-coming creators.

Some of my favorite movies are these niche films, random adaptations, and stories.

Push, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, even Twilight ( yes, the first one is an indie movie ).

Piracy is a good way to preserve movies or music that didn’t perform well financially but could be a great time capsule for a few generations. Just look at how Dr. Who episodes are still missing, as BBC just threw them out because they already aired them.

Some people also support piracy after realizing that buying games or movies online only means paying for a license. Providers can delete your access at any time. Gamers and movie lovers struggle with his problem equally. Just think about how Ubisoft will delete your account, even if you spent hundreds of dollars if you are inactive just a little too long.

We also have to talk about accessibility and price. I met many doctorate students who just couldn’t afford their textbooks, so they searched for illegal PDF versions online.

I have to be honest; all my Sims 2 expansion backs were torrented versions, as there was no other way for me to play them. That game was my childhood; since then, I have put hundreds of dollars into the franchise.

Internet piracy is a difficult topic, and the reality is that there is no way to stop or judge it fairly.

The best we can do is listen to our morals. If you can buy the book, do it. Support the author so they can keep creating.

If you are already struggling as a full-time student and your unbearable professor mandates you to buy their own book, which costs around $200… We as a society can look away.For legal reasons, this was a joke.

Thanks for reading this week’s issue of The Funday Sunday.

One quick recommendation

My amazing boss recently started his own weekly email series about how to build a startup and why all you need is 10 engineers.

I had a little bit of a hand in this, so please check out his Linkedin and sub to his newsletter.

🎉 Cheers,Fanni Sophia