Internet Piracy: The Virtual Marketplace for Counterfeit Goods

  • Peggy Chaudhry
  • Alan Zimmerman
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Management for Professionals book series (MANAGPROF)

Abstract

Managers need to monitor several trends to protect their firm’s intellectual property on the Internet. In this chapter, we report global growth of Internet penetration rates and highlight piracy in both the motion picture and software industries that include ethical perceptions of this illicit behavior. We show that pirates on the virtual sea can be very sophisticated. One formidable opponents, is the warez group. Various stakeholders create the supply and demand for fake goods by way of a pyramid of Internet piracy. We provide a synopsis of the recent US government sting operations conducted with the assistance of other countries to target Internet piracy. Finally, we address the problem of educating the consumer that obtaining music, software, movies, and the like without compensation is unethical. This is a key issue in terms of decreasing the demand for counterfeit goods in the virtual marketplace where a consumer can exhibit more rogue behavior with a limited fear of prosecution (Chaudhry et al. 2011a, b). As discussed in Chap. 6, social marketing tactics have been employed by both the Motion Picture Association (MPAA) and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) to educate the consumer about fake products.

Keywords

Digital Right Management Software Piracy Release Group Copyright Holder Copyright Infringement 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • Peggy Chaudhry
    • 1
  • Alan Zimmerman
    • 2
  1. 1.Villanova School of BusinessVillanova UniversityVillanovaUSA
  2. 2.College of Staten IslandCity University of New YorkStaten IslandUSA

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