E-Commerce in the Global Business Environment

This article discusses the ethical, legal, and regulatory issues surrounding The Pirate Bay's file sharing practices and their impact on stakeholders in the e-commerce industry. It analyzes the stakeholders involved, ethical concerns, and legal and regulatory issues. The article argues for and against the actions of The Pirate Bay and explores the impact of inconsistent copyright laws on e-commerce. Course code, course name, and college/university are not mentioned.

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E-COMMERCE IN THE GLOBAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
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E-Commerce in the Global Business Environment
Introduction
The Pirate Bay (TPB) is a website, which permits users to download content illegally.
The Swedish file sharing site has carried on to operate despite being convinced facilitating huge
quantities of copy infringement; acting as a defiant statement regarding the resilient nature of
piracy. The TPB website has resulted in many legal, regulatory, and ethics issues that has affect
many stakeholders (Larsson & Måns, 2010, pp. 79). The customer demand and unintended
utilization of products are impacting the supply chain management (SCM), as well as e-
commerce practices (Adair, 2010, pp. 243). The position of The Pirates Bay is that the never
violated the intellectual property (IP) laws and regulations because they were fulfilling the public
obligations of ensuring the right to free to information and expression and that there actions were
not unethical because they were promoting the public good.
Task 1: Analysis and Stakeholders
The primary concern is that TPB is working around the law in many countries, especially
in European countries to ensure that their website along with software is accessible to its clients
using all available means. Another issue in the case of TPB is that the founders of the website
and creators feel as though there must be no price on copyrighted content and that it must be
given free of charge to those in the European countries (Gulen & Mihai, 2016, pp. 526). The last
issue in this case, and perhaps the most crucial matter that comes to light is that the internet
providers are able to gain access to the addresses, as well as names of persons who only
suspected of sharing pirated contents and files.

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Stakeholders
Consumers
Consumers are the primary stakeholder of the TPB that has greatly benefited from the
free downloads from the piracy action of the firm. The consumers download music, videos, and
other online content free of charge and they have enjoyed this service from the company that
benefits from piracy of other labels that they are not their own. Consumer as the stakeholder
continue to consume the products of the company and it is these customers that makes TPB to
carry on with the activities of producing more content to the ready market. The consumers of the
pirated products mainly come from European nations where TPB has a huge customer base
where they record more downloads than any other part of the world (McDonald, 2011, pp. 565).
Shareholders
Shareholders are the owners of the firm that runs and makes business decisions on a daily
basis. In the case of TPB, the creators and founders of the website are the primary shareholders
of the company who made the decision to share the files freely to its customers. The main
stakeholders of TPB were Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström who founded the
company. These shareholders played an important role in making the decisions in regard to the
distribution of the files to different customers in their target destinations. Thus, the shareholders
had a huge role in ensuring that the content reaches many customers, especially in the European
markets. The three founders were among the defendants who were accused of piracy activities in
the court (Andersson & Pelle, 2010, pp. 56).
Governments

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The enactment and passage of legislations and laws covering intellectual property (IP) on
different trademarks is the role of government. The government of the day should ensure that the
IP of products are protected by any means through laws and legislation. The governments are
affected by the piracy products marketed and distributed through online means by TPB. The
governments are required to develop law and policies that will guide the e-commerce industry,
especially in the entertainment industry. The government should play a primary role in ensuring
that the intellectual property laws that cover copyright are in place to prevent piracy cases. In the
case of TPB, Sweden government was blamed for not developing adequate laws and regulations
that could prevent the piracy of different labels from TPB. The Swedish government failed to
protect through laws and legislations the piracy activities of TPB because of the inadequate
frameworks to prevent these piracies. Therefore, the government has a huge role in the case
study in developing the necessary IP laws to safeguard copyrights of e-commerce products,
especially in entertainment industry. TPB’s e-commerce business depended on exploiting a legal
grey area, and regulators ultimately made the decision that its activities were unlawful
(McDonald, 2011, pp. 567).
Regulators
The regulatory authorities in the case of TPB has a role in developing the necessary
frameworks to ensure that the IP laws are operational and ensure that copyrights of products are
products. Regulators refer to decision-makers that influence, implement, as well as monitor the
functioning of official organizations. The deeds of the regulators happen in the legislative,
judicial of governmental system. The regulators have the role of making sure that the IP laws are
enforced at its best and that companies in the e-commerce industry are protected from piracy.

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Regulators may react to elusive entrepreneurship by endeavouring to adapt their institutions and
to eradicate practices of piracy as it was in the case of TPB (Ceraso & Pruchnic, 2011, pp. 338).
Task 2: Ethical Issues
Ethics has become apparent in the instance of “The Pirate Bay” where the activities of the
organization have many questions when it comes to ethical concerns. The company’s operation
in the internet can been regarded as violation of ethics and on the other hand, TPB practices
promoted ethics. The company’s anonymous posting enabled by p2p violated the expectation
that any redistribution of controversial data of this kind must have a clear sender, which was not
the case of TPB. The act of sending anonymous data through the internet would make the
company to bear the ultimate responsibility in line with the potential abuse of personal integrity.
The scenario where TPB gained access to addresses, as well as names of persons who only
suspected of sharing pirated contents and files became unethical (Douhan & Magnus, 2010, pp.
630). This practice violated the virtue ethics because accessing personal information amounted to
the violation of the confidentiality of the customers. The access to the personal information was
unethical because the customers whose information was accessed had no prior knowledge. TPB
gained access to this information in the context that the customers affected were also sharing
pirated files (Knight, 2013, pp36).
However, TPB claimed that its activities on sharing files did not amount to the violation
of ethics because the entire operation of The Pirate Bay is founded on the notion-primary to the
pirate ethos-of promoting a “safe haven” for controversial links, “for the good of the net”. This
can be seen from the perspective of utilitarian theory. The utilitarian theory holds that an action
should promote the greatest happiness of the majority in the society. This theory is founded on

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the fact that a certain action should maximize the happiness of the majority and not the minority.
This is the case of TPB because it activities were merely on the platform that the content
distributed should benefit many people who needed to use the videos and music content without
paying for them. The company did not charge its customers fro downloading the videos, music
and other downloads because the owners believed in the philosophy of right to access
information through the internet (Filby, 2011, 98). The owners of the company believed that they
had the role of fulfilling some sort of public responsibility by making many people enjoy the
videos rather than purchasing them from the players in the entertainment industry. TPB
considered that they were redistributing public content that the public should consume freely
rather than spending some money to buy this content. Therefore, this argument by the owners on
the right to receive information is reinforced by utilitarianism since the entire act maximizes the
happiness of the majority who enjoys their content without paying them (Burke, 2010, pp. 78).
Task 3: Legal and Regulatory Issues
The high profile file sharing cases have offered the impetus for many arguments
concerning the business models of the entertainment industry. Some of the main lawsuits, which
have tried to combat file sharing have been successful in their objectives; however, often fail to
have any noteworthy effect beyond their individual case, rendering them rather futile as a tactic
for copyright enforcement. For instance, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
filed charges against early file sharing software service, Napster, an act that led to later having to
turn legal techniques of music distribution, efficiently ending its involvement in piracy. The case
of TPB is perfectly a case where intellectual property laws were violated because of the
inadequate framework in Sweden during that time. The difference of the TPB case from other
cases as KaZaA, was that TPB used of torrent technology as opposed to file sharing via a central

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server o sharing whole files through one computer. The case of TPB lead to four key founders of
the TPB being charged with facilitating illegal file sharing through violating copyright laws on
intellectual property (Zhang & Richard, 2009, pp. 437).
The case of TPB entailed the copyright contravention. Copyright infringement entails the
exploitation of works that are safeguarded by copyright law with no permission, which
encroaches on specific special rights allowed to the copyright owner, like the right to produce,
display, or distribute the content. TPB profited in distributing pirated content by infringing the
copyright laws by exploring institutional inconsistencies, both based on geography and
implementation of regulations. The original TPB tracker was situated in Mexico to evade legal
inquiry, and the TPB’s servers were afterward relocated as extra evasive measure and to carry on
infringing the copyright laws. In addition, as a file sharing podium, TPB profited from the legal
inconsistencies grey areas in earlier copyright regulations, which permitted for home copying
amid peers that may, in turn, be interpreted as a dogmatic adjustment for irregularity founded on
the improbability of implementing a total ban on producing copies and distributing it to peers.
With the digital substance, the Internet along with the BitTorrent trackers, the environment for
home copying unexpectedly become international and copies did not worsen in excellence
(Leyden & Link, 2015, 67).
The actual copying, as well as sharing of files was carried out by the users, as well as the
customer software that was totally independent from The Pirates Bay, though the tracker made
everything considerably simpler, plus more effective. At some point, around 70 per cent of
global torrents, that is, metadata files, which harmonize all cases of a particular version of file,
were approximated to be trafficked via TPB’s tracker. Thus, this capacity of files comprised a
noteworthy portion of the global internet traffic (Stewart, Griffith, Bannister & McKeoug, 2010).

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Though copyright infringement in the case of TBP was taking place on a huge scale, The Pirates
Bay’s legal duties were not totally apparent. This absence of clarity may be explained through
different institutional contradictions that The Pirates Bay adequately exploited. The legal and
regulatory frameworks in Sweden during this time were weak that permitted TPB to copy and
share many files among its clients. TPB profited from institutional inconsistencies based on
geography and implementation of laws. In addition, if diverse nations or states have diverse
regulations, an entrepreneur may profit from institutional arbitrage through recognizing a
location where regulations are less obligatory or less strictly implemented, as long as such
faction is probable. The original tracker of TPB was located in Mexico to evade legal
examination, and The Pirate Bay’s servers were later relocated as an extra evasive legal measure.
In addition, the file sharing stand, The Pirates Bay profited from the grey field in law regarding
the preceding copyright regulations, which permitted for home copying amid peers, which may
be understood as a regulatory accommodation for a discrepancy founded on the improbability of
implementing a total ban on producing copies plus distributing to peers (Caenegem, 2010, 98).
Founded on obtainable proof, the piracy along with the counterfeiting challenge in
Australia constitutes two considerable aspects: the cross-border introduction of fake products,
like footwear, clothing, as well as luxury products; in addition to the domestic production of
products that violate copyright, like films, videos, software, as well as games. Regulatory
frameworks in place in Australia comprise the registration of some intellectual Property (IP) and
the ACS notices of objection procedures (for copyright along with trademarks) (Caenegem,
2010, 24). The primary Commonwealth law that has infringement crimes comprise the Copyright
Act 1968, as well as the Trade Marks Act 1995 (Knight, 2013, pp. 71). The latest amendments to
the Criminal Act 1995, which expanded the span of computer-related crimes, can too apply to

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digital violation of IP rights. Other laws in Australia that might have use are business dealings
law (Trade Practices Act 1974) and general criminal laws. These laws in Australia are very
adequate and have reduced cases of file sharing and copying the violate IP laws on copyright.
This implies that The Pirates Bay could not have performed it copying and files sharing in
Australia because of consistent copyright laws unlike in Sweden (Motion Picture Association of
America (MPAA), 2006, pp. 17).
Argument For
The Pirate Bay actions were justified in terms of ethics because the claims of the owners
were that they were promoting the aspect of public good. The owners claimed that wanted to
promote their public responsibility of ensuring that the public get their right of free information
and expression through the media. This is supported by the perspective of utilitarianism where
the act of an individual or group should amount to the greatest happiness to the majority. This is
a premise of ethics because at the end of the day, the customers were happy being the majority
since they were not charged for the products that they received. The owners of The Pirates Bay
claimed that they were activist towards promoting civil rights where they were concerned about
the charges that the customers were imposed by the industry leaders in the entertainment sector.
Therefore, the actions of the company resulted in the public good and the notion of virtue ethics
does not play a significant function in the case of TPB (Cheng & Lai, 2010, pp. 74).
In my view, TPB did not violate copyrights regulations and laws on IP because Sweden
did not have stringent regulations to stop the act of piracy during this time. In terms of regulatory
and legal aspects, The Pirates Bay was justified because during this time the laws and regulations
in Sweden were not strict and provided no clear framework on issues to do with copyright. The

E-Commerce in the Global Business Environment 10
IP laws during this time were weak to stop the actions of TPB. Thus, TPB profited from
institutional contradictions because of lack of regulations and laws. The lawful impacts of
copying a file through downloading many pieces from huge number of diverse users and
compiling them into a complete were not clear since this process had formerly not be a feasible
alternative for making copies. The novel technology based on the torrent platform has allowed
TPB to undertake its acts for which there were no regulations, as well as laws were lagging
behind, which was not the fault of TPB, but the regulators. For several years, Sweden had
relatively lenient laws and regulations regarding piracy, which allowed TPB to facilitate its
concept of free content towards promoting the public good. In fact, TPB was independent and it
was the users that downloaded and shared the material and TPB was not responsible for sharing
the material (Adair, 2010, pp. 244).
Conclusion
TPB case is a perfect case of laws and regulations regarding intellectual property laws as
far as piracy are concerned. It is apparent that TPB took the advantage of institutional
inconsistency founded on enforceability. In reality, TPB only allowed transactions of digital
content through linking, as well as downloading a distributed network of users. Thus, together
with network users, the BiTorrent technology indistinct the boundaries amid uploading and
downloading and subsequently challenged institutions concerning copying and copyright
infringement. For that reason, the openness along with the scope of The Pirate Bay was its
strength, while the end users were its value. Thus, this underscores the significance of how
TPB’s founders successfully handled their end of the elusion. In addition, the founders were not
driven mainly by profits, but non-profit motives of the desire for social change as part of the anti-
copyright crusade towards promoting the public good. This was a clear motive of public

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responsibility of public responsibility of ensuring that the public access content free of charge.
Therefore, I believe that the position of The Pirates Bay was justified founded on the above
arguments.

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