Copyright, Patents and Trademarks - Essay Example

Privacy issues are difficult to handle, especially when dealing with copyright matters. DeNardis (2015) notes that entertainment earnings declined roughly 50 percent - from $14.6 billion to $7.7 billion - in the decade after the file-sharing site Napster emerged. However, domain shutdowns and three-strike rules have helped reduce cases of piracy. The problem is on peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing sites where privacy is a thorny issue. Indeed, top-level domains are critical infrastructures that facilitate access to government services. The shutdown of such sites can cripple countries and states. However, some large sites such as Google have a lot of users, more than even the populations of most countries.

The issue of sites such as pirate bay’s continued existence is a result of reluctance in the copyright enforcement agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The ICE only redirects traffic from the site by changing the domain access of a site to a different site without the pirated material (DeNardis, 2015). This temporary shutdown contributes to the continued existence of sites such as Pirate Bay.

The ICE should improve its information technology skills so that it can track the physical address of the servers used to carry out piracy. Additionally, the ICE should confiscate all servers and any materials used to carry out piracy, and arrest and prosecute the copyright violators. Although closing down domains and arresting individuals who download copyright materials will not completely stop piracy, it will help reduce its occurrence. However, it needs improvement as indicated above.

What are the better ways, from your perspective, which can reduce copyrights and trademark violations, or do you believe that the war against piracy can never be won?