Long Live Piracy...

A little dramatic, eh! Well, this is certainly not the war cry of a lone

ranger, read me, but of over 255 mn people across the globe. And that number

might be an underestimation. If I look at the downloads of various peer to peer

programs like Kazaa, Morpheus and iMesh from just one site, download.com, the

total number of downloads add up to over 255 mn. While there may certainly be

huge overlaps-as one person downloads multiple programs-yet the numbers are

startling. And I am not even talking about another program-BitTorrent-which

is devouring over a third of the global internet bandwidth, making the war cry

heard even louder. What is interesting about BitTorrent is the way it works.

People using BitTorrent will download a small file called a "torrent"

onto their computer. And when they open the file the program searches for other

users that have the same torrent. BitTorrent's software breaks the original

digital file into fragments, then those fragments are shared between all of the

users that have downloaded the "torrent." Then the software stitches

together those fragments into a single file that users can view on their PC.

This has become a very efficient system for large files, especially software and

movies, much to the ire of Hollywood and software companies like Microsoft.

The big question is: Can it be stopped? Can we say 'Down with Piracy'?

Globally, software companies like Microsoft and Adobe, and other local bodies,

have been doing their bit to stop software piracy. For instance, last year we

saw the Recording Industry Association of America (representing the record

industry) suing individuals for downloading and sharing MP3s. Then, along with

the Motion Picture Association of America (representing the film industry), the

RIAA put pressure on the US congress which culminated in March 2004 in a US

legislation draft, known as the Pirate Act, which supports cracking down on file

sharers by setting the penalty for copyright infringement at several years in

jail.

Did this help? While it did spread the message that MP3s/movies over p2p

network are illegal, the pirates seem to have simply ignored them and continued

business as usual.

Locally, Microsoft, Nasscom and BSA have been taking the cudgels to whack the

pirates hard. But not to much effect. It seems a few of these have been more for

the media, to try to run a chill up the pirate's spine. Like the incident

involving the late Dewang Mehta, who took an elephant to Nehru Place, Delhi and

trampled pirated CDs. Great show. Or, in recent times, Microsoft taking action

against some channel players and taking them to court. It is interesting to note

that in one of the cases, the defendant company, Compton Computers, had earlier,

in 2002, given an undertaking to Microsoft that they will not indulge in

software piracy in the future. In 2004, Microsoft found Compton Computers

blatantly violating their 2002 undertaking by indulging in hard disk loading of

pirated Microsoft software. Does this work? Don't think so. Look at the

numbers released in the second annual Piracy Study-05 by BSA and IDC. The piracy

rate has increased by a percentage to 74% in 2004. And we are not even talking

about music piracy. DQ had estimated a loss by the music industry to the tune of

over Rs 10,000 cr in 2002. Interestingly, the Indian equivalent of RIAA is yet

to take this up in a big way.

While I would love to say 'Down with Piracy' and 'Kill the Buccaneers',

I realize that it is futile.

The dark force is strong. We need new thinking on the same-educating the

users, bringing down prices of products/songs/videos and much more. Easier said

than done and might take a long time to happen. Till such time, I am going to

live with piracy and keep hearing the mocking howl of 'Long Live Piracy'.

Yograj Varma,

Associate Editor