Crime Watch: Piracy

Piracy is the unauthorized duplication of an original recording of someone’s work for commercial gain without the consent of the rightful owner.

The packaging of pirate copies is different from the original. Pirate copies are often compilations, such as the "greatest hits" of a specific artist, or a collection of a specific genre, such as dance tracks, movies and written materials like textbooks among other things.

The problem of piracy has arisen with the rapid advance of technology. New techniques of printing, recording and fixation of broadcast or recorded programs have emerged. These have made it easy for the pirates to carry on their illegal activities without thinking otherwise. It is clearly known and generally accepted that piracy is an illegal and criminal activity throughout the world.

Music or film piracy basically refers to three kinds of illegal activities, one of which is counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is the unauthorized copying of the sound or movies, books, as well as artwork, trademark, label and packaging of the original recording. The aim is to mislead the consumer into thinking that they are buying the genuine product. The second one is pirate recordings or photocopying. These are illegitimate or unauthorized duplications of educational properties, music or movies from legitimate publication and recordings for commercial gain. Pirated CDs/VCDs/DVDs - movies or music cassettes may be compilations such as 'Top Ten', 'Bollywood or Nollywood Hits.'

They could even be combinations of hit titles of different movies or music companies. The packing and presentation of a pirate copy does not usually resemble a legitimate and commercial release. The last is called bootlegging. This is recording, duplication and sale of a performance such as a live concert or broadcast without the permission of the artist or the record company which may be entitled to control the recording rights of the artists’ performances.

Piracy is not limited to only movies or music alone as mentioned earlier. It is as well extended to your software. Piracy comes in different ways. Among them is end user piracy which is referred to as copying the same software onto more than one computer; copying office software onto a home computer; loaning your software to someone else so that the person can make a copy among other ways.

In clear terms, arts, books, inventions, magazines, movies, music, performances, reports, software, stories, and trademarks are all examples of intellectual property and can represent a substantial investment of resources and talent. Intellectual property can be protected by a copyright, patent, trademark or treated as a trade secret, and some intellectual property can be covered by multiple kinds of protection. So piracy is a theft of intellectual property - in other words, stealing what does not belong to you.

Two indicators that can be on a work or product to alert you to the author/owner's intent to protect his or her rights are a "©" or"®" on the product. A "©" on the work means it is copyrighted and an "®" means it is a registered trademark.

However, just because you cannot find the mark on a product does not mean there is no protection for it - copyrights, patents and trademarks may still apply; and there are also common law rights and other means to protect works, including performance contracts and licenses. Not everyone takes this issue seriously enough, nor do they all care what could happen to you should you be caught with pirated goods. As the saying goes: ‘ignorance of the law really is no excuse!’ Two other sayings that could also keep you out of trouble: ‘let the buyer beware’ and ‘if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!’

Read more about The Gambia’s new copyright law in our subsequent editions.