How is piracy hurting the case for copyright online?

Briana Lugo

MCS 244

14 April 2019

How is piracy hurting the case for copyright online?

Piracy is the unauthorized use or copyright of someone else’s work. Piracy is illegal and a big deal in the united states, you can be sued or arrested for piracy. In the article “Everything we know about how people watched ‘The Interview’ and what it means for the future of internet video” by Zachary M. Seward discusses the issues about online streaming. Hollywood is losing millions of dollars due to streaming, many people are not attending theaters and the box office because they are now able to access films illegally online through all these websites that copyright films. When the movie “The Interview” was released people were allowed to purchase the film online through streaming instead of having to go to the theater.  The film generated over 15 million dollars with just online streaming alone that did not include the money they generated at the box office. Although the film generated millions because of their online streaming option there are also some downfalls to this .Seward states “The two million legal downloads of The Interview in four days compare to 1.5 million illegal downloads of the film in two days. Sony has only made the film available in the US and Canada, so the rest of the world would have had to resort to piracy”. The film lost a lot of money because they had over a million illegal downloads of the film, meaning over a million people were able to watch the film without paying a single cent. In the long run these streaming services can hurt business because they could lose over millions of dollars due to illegal streaming and downloads. Streaming platforms such as netflix and hulu are more convenient for those people who like to stay home and not go out to theaters to wait in line. But unfortunately streaming can cause a large amount of illegal downloads.

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