Pirate Tales from the Deep [Web]: An Exploration of Online Copyright Infringement in the Digital Age
Abstract
Technology has seen a boom over the last few decades, making innovative leaps that border on science fiction. With the most recent technological leap came a new frontier of intellectual property and birthed a new class of criminal: the cyber-pirate. This Article discusses cyber-piracy and its interactions and implications for modern United States copyright law. The Article explains how copyright law, unprepared for the boom, struggled to adapt as courts reconciled the widely physical perceptions of copyright with the digital information being transferred between billions of users instantaneously. The Article also explores how cyber-piracy has made, and continues to make, its mark on copyright enforcement through political movements that vie for reduced copyright protections and support elusive distribution platforms that are nearly impossible to shut down permanently. As technology continues to surge forward, and 3D printers become increasingly available to consumers, copyright law will have to account for a new field of works that may need to be protected in the face of rising political turmoil.
Recommended Citation
Butland, Nicholas C. and Sullivan, Justin J.
(2018)
"Pirate Tales from the Deep [Web]: An Exploration of Online Copyright Infringement in the Digital Age,"
University of Massachusetts Law Review: Vol. 13:
Iss.
1, Article 2.
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.umassd.edu/umlr/vol13/iss1/2