Copyright Information

Ever since the copyright laws were established, the consequences of copyright infringement were perceivable, but not common knowledge. Since the Internet became widely available and the associated file swapping lead to many copyright infringement cases, the consequences of breaking copyright law became widely known as punishment for piracy. For a while there were really funny ads on German television, which targeted pirates and describing possible consequences of copyright violations. In one clip, you see a woman with two youngish kids somewhere on the street singing "Happy Birthday". How the clip progresses, so the camera changes the angle and zooms out, revealing that the three are standing in front of a huge jail and sing to a figure appearing in one of the windows with iron bars. At that moment, the clip stops and a voice reads the statement written on the telly as well: "Piracy is crime. Face the consequences." There are not only negative consequences of the copyright infringement cases. Without the Napster case, the peer to peer file swapping software, there would not be the iTunes store. The convenience we have nowadays, to download our favorite songs for a relatively low price from the Internet, yes, we have to thank the pirates for that. It is to be expected that at one point the music industry behemoths start some Internet wars, by revoking the license to iTunes in order to revive the more or less defunct Napster service they, eh, let us say took over, and try again to monopolize the market. Nevertheless, no matter how many pirates they put away, there will always at least the same amount - but usually there's more than that - take over and continue to provide free content, which would normally cost us an arm and a leg. Instead of providing software to the common man for free, and charging commercial businesses full price, companies like Adobe more or less looked the other way when their main programs got cracked. Until recently it was as easy as getting from anybody who had an original or a copy of the program the installation and simply install it with any key easily obtainable on the Net. But forced by the almighty BSA - the Business Software Alliance, even Adobe now pursues tougher security measures, much to the chagrin of their paying customers, because the new copyright protection has a funny consequence, it eats up all possible resources, thereby limiting the rendering power of machines. Many users who bought legitimate software crack the copy protection with illegal cracking software, in order to enhance productivity.