Political and Economic Transition - Essay Example

Q. What actions can companies and governments take to ensure that products are not easily pirated? A. Piracy is one of the major concerns faced by producers of different kinds of products throughout the world. Anti-piracy measures need to be taken to prevent issues like copyright infringement, counterfeiting and violation of intellectual property.Even though such measures are difficult to impose and not really effective, I still believe each and everything possible should be done to counter the menace of piracy.

Patents, for instance can be used to get a right to the sole production of a good, a right to a particular production process or some invention. They are usually granted by the government to the maker of a product and the government thereby, promises the company to restrict others to use the same process or produce the same product.Another way of preventing piracy is to use such unique production methods which are very difficult to be copied. For instance movies are now available on Blu-ray discs and it is nearly impossible to make a copy of them without a standard Blu-ray writer.

And Blu-ray writers are very expensive, thereby limiting the chances of pirating movies.Another possible way is to take action against pirates or those who are involved in mass piracy. The American Immigration and Customs enforcement undertook a massive crackdown in 2010 and shut down the famous video hosting website called Ninja Video. One more popular instance of a crackdown on pirates was when a US court ordered the famous P2P (peer to peer) software giant LimeWire from taking its service off the internet.Q. Increased digital communication may pose a threat to intellectual property because technology enables people to create perfect clones of original works.

How do you think the internet affects intellectual property laws?A. The internet is a great facility which has facilitated people throughout the world with its technological advancements and things available online. However it is also the most successful medium to be used by people involved in piracy.Intellectual property can be described as property that can be protected under a nation’s law including copyright ideas, discoveries, inventions and works. There is a lot of information available on the internet that can easily be downloaded, copied and shared.

The ease with which such information can be copied and distributed has become a nightmare for the creators/makers of such information. With so little protection available to the creators of information, they fear a massive fall in their income. An author’s income is based upon the number of his books which are sold. What has happened with the advent of internet is that people often buy an e-book and share it on free peer to peer sites for other to download and use them for free. This same book can be used by thousands of people while just one copy is paid for – just think about the amount of damage that would be suffered by the author in terms of revenue lost.

Music and movie piracy is also another famous case of how the internet affects intellectual property laws. Often times what pirated do is that they buy a single copy of a music cd or movie dvd and then share it with others over the internet. Leaving that aside nowadays a new form of movie piracy has come in called “cam print movie piracy”. What happens here is that one of the movie viewers take a camera with them to the cinema and record the movie and spread the movie!Without any doubt the internet has been a blessing for the pirates and a nightmare for the creators of movies/books/songs.

The key issue in dealing with intellectual property laws is about the information user and creator’s rights. The government needs to strike a balance between the two of them so that this issue can be tackled tactfully.BibliographyTop of FormFreedman, J. (2008). Intellectual property. New York: Rosen Central.Bottom of FormTop of FormHunnewell, L. (2008). Internet piracy. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub. Co.Bottom of Form