Consumer Insight Report: Piracy, Consumer Behavior, and Solutions

This report examines the pervasive issue of piracy within the entertainment industry, highlighting its detrimental effects and exploring consumer behavior. The report delves into the various channels through which piracy occurs, including both social and technical aspects, and analyzes the motivations behind consumers' engagement in illegal downloading practices. It outlines a series of measures aimed at discouraging piracy and promoting legal consumption, such as implementing strict cybersecurity protocols, enhancing security at various stages of video streaming, and imposing stringent penalties for copyright infringement. Furthermore, the report emphasizes the importance of raising consumer awareness about the negative consequences of piracy and providing accessible and affordable legal content options. It also addresses the role of producers in the industry, urging them to enhance security systems and collaborate in combating piracy. Finally, the report underscores the necessity of regularly reviewing and updating anti-piracy measures to adapt to technological advancements and evolving consumer behaviors.

Consumer Insight Report

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Piracy is the most important problem that is faced by the entertainment industry in the
current world as it is increasing at a great speed (Geng and Lee, 2013). There are various legal
policies that are specified in this context but then also it is not having any effect on the
consumers as they are still practising it. In the below presented report various aspects such as
consumer behaviour, reasons why this is in practice and measures that are needed to be taken in
order to discourage piracy and encourage legal consumption will be discussed.
TASK
One of the most important challenges that is faced by the entertainment industry is of the
pirating of the movies and TV series. Pirating is an activity in which the movies are copied and
distributed illegally in DVDs, videos or electronic files or it can be said that it is theft.
Entertainment organisations are suffering due to this as by this the movies are provided at lower
rates or sometimes they are even provided before the movies or series is launched (Danaher,
Smith and Telang, 2014). Due to this the movie that has to be a success will not become as its
value is reduced in the world. The direct effect of it can be seen in the revenue as by this the
values is decreased so the income that will be earned will be less and makers of films and series
will face the financial issues. As making a film requires huge amount of money which is to be
financed from outside so by decrease in revenue the producers will not be able to refund that
amount and it will decrease there reputation in the market.
There are various websites that are running from which all these movies and all can be
downloaded and by this the praters earn their income. This is an illegal practice but than also it is
running at a large scale and this is because inspite of knowing that it is wrong than also
consumers are supporting it. They are doing so because they are getting the movies and series in
an easy and cheaper manner otherwise they would have to pay a high amount for it. In order to
control this activity which is performed by the pirator, government has specified laws which are
required to be complied by them in order to save themselves from the prosecution and fine that
they will be required to bear if they do not comply with the laws (Adimoolam, John and
Gunashanthi, 2013). Although the fines are specified and all consumers know about it but than
also they are not afraid of it and are continuing to perform it. This is due to the reason that the
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penalty that they are required to pay for breaching the law is not more than the amount that will
be earned by them from carrying out this activity of piracy.
All this pirating activity that is being carried out is proving to be harmful for the
entertainment organisations as by it they are not able to maintain the quality and even some of
them are not able to survive in the market (Taylor, 2012). It is done in many ways which include
channels from where these movies and series can be downloaded and these channels include both
technical and social. Due to this reason it is very necessary that some measures are taken so that
it can be discouraged and the legal consumption can be encouraged. This can be achieved by
performing various actions which are explained here under.
As stated above the channels through which illegal downloading is dome are of two types
which are social and technical. In case of social aspect people who download the illegal content
are authorised and so the sharing process is initiated here (Koster, 2012). In order to stop this it
will be needed that strict cybersecurity protocol must be implemented and by this those persons
who are having the access to the information will be said to be responsible for those videos. In
case of technical aspect all the stages will be checked by which the videos pass through so that
the place from where the video is capable of being downloaded can be identified. There are
various stages from which a video passes which are cloud service on which video is hosted and
in this it will be necessary that such platform is chosen which has its own cloud setup so that the
video cannot be downloaded from there and for that it will be needed that private link should be
there and should be recorded in encrypted manner. After this the video will be streamed from the
server to media player. this stage is mostly vulnerable to have illegal downloads as there are high
chances that all the unauthorised source will try to download the incoming files. So to ensure
security, stream will be encrypted so that only authorised persons can decrypt the video file.
The next stage is the key transfer in which the key to decrypt the file are exchanged
between media server and media player and the chances of piration increases if the public
mechanism is used than in that case anyone can get access to the key (Kariithi, 2011). This can
be controlled by ensuring that there is direct channel which can be made by back end
authentication among the video streamer and API player. The last stage is of the video playback
which is the most risky stage as in this there are high chances that video will be downloaded with
the use of screen recorders. The method through which it can be controlled is deterrence measure
which include watermarking in which a text moves across screen which contains user
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identifiable infraction and when someone will download the video his identifiable information
will be recorded and by this there will be a threat among all in relation to potential litigation.
A part from the measures that are mentioned above there are certain other measures also
by which this practice can be stopped (Baggam, Rao and Varma, 2013). As there are already
some laws that are specified but no body cares for them so it is needed that such rules should be
made which cannot broken which means that the fine and the jail time that will be specified
should be such that people are afraid of it and never think of non complying with them. It should
be ensured that the fine that is fixed a very high amount which is very difficult for any person to
bear and if he commits any crime than he will be required to pay it. By doing so there will be
some strictness that will be made as now they will have fear that the consequences that they will
have to bear are very devastating and can make them loose everything which will be more than
what they will be earning by doing such illegal practices. As the consumers are the one who
plays the most important role in encouraging these activities so it is necessary that firstly the
awareness should be spread among them in relation to the harmful effect of it. They should be
told that all these will be of great disadvantage to them and should be encouraged to use the legal
material. This can be done by providing them with the facilities through which it will be made
easier for them to get the content and they will not have to face the difficulties that they are
facing in the current scenario (Bodó and Lakatos, 2012). Also it should be ensured to them that
they will receive the original videos at the price that will be affordable for them.
In addition to consumers there are some producers also who are involved in this, so it is
required that they should also be told about the impact that will be caused to the industry in long
term due to this piracy. They are involved in this because they are getting additional advantage
due to this as they allow the other persons to download the video in an illegal manner and in
return of it they charge a heavy amount from them which is far more than what they can earn by
undertaking the legal means (Gupta and Venkataramani, 2015). So they should be told that
although they are earning good now but this is destroying the whole industry which will not be
possible to made correct in the future when the problem will increase even more. They should be
encouraged that the security system of the organisation should be enhanced and money should be
used in order to improve the current system or make the new system that will have the capacity
to control the negative effects that are caused due to such illegal practices. All the sites that are
available fro which the series and movies can be downloaded in an illegal manner are required to
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be blocked so that they can no longer be used in any illegal activity (Goode, 2012). This is step
can be used to control the practice but it should be ensured that there are no other ways possible
by which they can be unblocked or there should not be present any alternative means which can
be used in place of those sites.
All the above mentioned are the measures which should be used and will prove to be
beneficial for the entertainment organisation but it should also be ensured that there is a system
established by which all the measures that are undertaken will have to be reviewed on timely
basis. This is required to be done because with time there are many persons who find the ways to
violate the rules so it is necessary that they are revised from time to time so that the chances of
there failure are reduced to a great extent and also the technological changes that take place can
be incorporated in the security system to make it more secure and advanced.
CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned report it can be concluded that there are various ways in
which pirating of movies is done and which is very harmful for the industry. It has also been
found that different measures are available through which these activities can be reduced to great
extent. By following them the illegal practices will be discouraged and the legal consumption
will be encouraged.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adimoolam, M., John, A and Gunashanthi, M., 2013. Anti-Piracy for Movies using Forensic
Watermarking. International Journal of Computer Applications. 63(4).
Baggam, S., Rao, K. V and Varma, P. S., 2013. Detecting Pirated Movie’s with Similarity
Assessment Based on Earth Mover’s Distance. International Journal of
Information Technology and Computer Science (IJITCS). 5(4). p.47.
Bodó, B and Lakatos, Z., 2012. Piracy Cultures| P2P and Cinematographic Movie Distribution in
Hungary. International Journal of Communication. 6. p.33.
Danaher, B., Smith, M. D and Telang, R., 2014. Piracy and copyright enforcement
mechanisms. Innovation Policy and the Economy. 14(1). pp.25-61.
Geng, X and Lee, Y. J., 2013. Competing with piracy: A multichannel sequential search
approach. Journal of Management Information Systems. 30(2). pp.159-184.
Goode, S., 2012. Initial findings of a gap analysis of the digital piracy literature: six
undiscovered countries. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing. 6(4).
pp.238-259.
Gupta, P. K and Venkataramani, B., 2015. Evaluation of movie piracy using an integrated
approach of interpretive structural modelling and MICMAC
analysis. International Journal of Indian Culture and Business
Management. 11(1). pp.43-58.
Kariithi, N. K., 2011. Is the devil in the data? A literature review of piracy around the world. The
Journal of World Intellectual Property. 14(2). pp.133-154.
Koster, A., 2012. Fighting Internet Piracy: The French Experience With The Hadopi
Law. International Journal of Management & Information Systems
(Online). 16(4). p.327.
Taylor, S. A., 2012. Evaluating digital piracy intentions on behaviors. Journal of Services
Marketing. 26(7). pp.472-483.
Online
Why The Government's Anti-Piracy Code Won't Stop Illegal Downloads. 2017. [Online].
Available through:<https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/12/why-the-
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governments-anti-piracy-code-wont-stop-illegal-downloads-in-australia/>.
[Accessed on 12th June 2017]
Four steps to stop software piracy at your company. 2017. [Online]. Available
through:<http://www.techrepublic.com/article/four-steps-to-stop-software-
piracy-at-your-company/>. [Accessed on 12th June 2017]
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