History of Internet Piracy

Piracy is something that we frequently see on a daily basis in this culture and in this time. Most people have stumbled upon a torrent site or a file-sharing program when surfing the internet. However, many people don't just find them on accident, but instead go looking for them. Today piracy is very prevalent, but how long has it been like this? 

Since the time of our parents generations, we have seen music progress from records, to cassette tapes, to CDs, to in our generation, mp3s. Many people wanted to share their music and not have to pay for it. With technology improving the sharing capabilities the piracy of music increased with it. Piracy first became big  when CDs came around. CDs allowed individuals to copy and distribute music quickly and easily. 

However, when mp3s came around, the opportunity for piracy increased exponentially. This website, called computerdjsummit, provides some interesting information on the history of piracy. It reports that mp3 replaced sex as the most searched word on the internet, and that in 1999, over a billion music files were downloaded. This was likely spurred on by the invention of Napster.

Napster was the first of its kind. It was a peer to peer file sharing program. Basically what this means is that people log into Napster to get connected with each other and share files across this platform. They can upload and download. A way to get all of the free music you could ever want! Napster seemed too good to be true... and it ends up that it was. In 2000, the RIAA, which is the Recording Industry Association of America, filed a lawsuit against Napster for copyright infringement, and a year later they shut down. This form of piracy eventually was replaced by the torrent system, as was discussed in an earlier blog. This is often how piracy takes place today.