Copyright, Plagiarism & Fair Use (Pirate Bay)

source: http://www.cwu.edu/~bellesd/copyright.html

It is only fair and just when somebody's work is given a credit even though if a third party attempts to use it. The inventor should be entitled to be given a credit as it is their right and it is their work. In reference to Rouse (2005), "copyright is the ownership of an intellectual property within the limits prescribed by a particular nation's or international law".

Copyright is somewhat similar to plagiarism; however, copyright is often used in both federal statutes and case laws. According Goad (2005), copyright infringement is the "excessive use of another's original work, even if the source is properly acknowledged, may be a copyright infringement". Plagiarism on the other hand is often used in academic institutions when there is an educational dishonesty among students (Goad, 2005).

Fair Use is where an exception of copyright material happens. According to Nolo (2010) Fair Use is define as "any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work". This is where the third-party can copy without the copyright owner's permission.

An example of copyright; the UK government which gave out a High Court order in blocking five internet service providers from using a top-file sharing website; The Pirate Bay over copyright infringement. The High Court found out that Pirate Bay operators commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying to the people that created them (My Malaysia News, 2012).

The "Stop Online Piracy Act" or also known as SOPA is another similar example to fight online trafficking in copyrighted such as songs, videos, artistic works, inventions, etc. According to Kang (2011), "SOPA was introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the Judiciary Committee". So far SOPA has shut down several website such as Megavideo and Megaupload.

The below picture is an image when you type in megaupload.com today

source: http://megaupload.com/

In my opinion. the reason behind all this was obviously to protect people that have jobs connected with industry of  music  and television shows. These websites has violated the copyright law in distributing songs, videos and images via online for free.  As for the originator of these properties, they did not receive a single penny and their works have been widely spread for free as if they have been literally robbed. Hence, in boosting the creator's rightful source of income, the UK government and SOPA did the right thing in banning these pirated streaming websites.

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References

Kang, C 2011, 'House Introduces Internet Piracy Bill', online, viewed 8 June 2012, article retrieved from <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-tech/post/house-introduces-internet-piracy-bill/2011/10/26/gIQA0f5xJM_blog.html>.

Goad, M 2005, 'Copyright and Plagiarism', online, viewed 8 June 2012, article retrieved from <http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/plagiarism.htm>.

Rouse, M 2005, 'Copyright', online, viewed 8 June 2012, article retrieved from <http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/copyright>.

Nolo, 2010, 'Copyright and Fair Use', online, viewed 8 June 2012, article retrieved from <http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-a.html>.