The Piracy "Industry"

Until recent years, the problem of piracy (the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of copyrighted works (for commercial purposes)) was largely confined to the copying and physical distribution of tapes, disks and CDs. Yet the emergence and increased use of global data networks and the WWW has added a new dimension to the piracy of intellectual property by permitting still easier copying, electronic sales and transmissions of illegally reproduced copyrighted works on a grand scale.

This new development, often referred to as Internet piracy, broadly relates to the use of global data networks to 1) transmit and download digitized copies of pirated works, 2) advertise and market pirated intellectual property that is delivered on physical media through the mails or other traditional means, and 3) offer and transmit codes or other technologies which can be used to circumvent copy-protection security measures.

Lately the International Intellectual Property Alliance has published a new report on the estimated trade losses due to piracy. (The IIPA assumes that their report actually underestimates the loss of income due to the unlawful copying and distribution of copyrighted works. Yet it should be taken into consideration that the IIPA is the representative of the U.S. core copyright industries (business software, films, videos, music, sound recordings, books and journals, and interactive entertainment software).)

Table: IIPA 1998 - 1999 Estimated Trade Loss due to Copyright Piracy (in millions of US$)





Motion Pictures

Records & Music

Business Applications

Entertainment Software

Books





1999

1998

1999

1998

1999

1998

1999

1998

1999

1998

Total Losses

1323

1421

1684

1613

3211

3437

3020

2952

673

619



Total Losses (core copyright industries)

1999

1998

9910.0

10041.5




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Acessing the Internet

The Net connections can be based on wire-line and wireless access technolgies.

Wire-line access

Wire-less access

copper wires

Satellites

coaxial cables

mobile terrestrial antennas

electric power lines

fixed terrestrial antennas

fiber-optic cables







Usually several kinds of network connections are employed at once. Generally speaking, when an E-mail message is sent it travels from the user's computer via copper wires or coaxial cables ISDN lines, etc., to an Internet Service Provider, from there, via fibre-optic cables, to the nearest Internet exchange, and on into a backbone network, tunneling across the continent und diving through submarine fibre-optic cables across the Atlantic to another Internet exchange, from there, via another backbone network and across another regional network to the Internet Service Provider of the supposed message recipient, from there via cables and wires of different bandwidth arriving at its destination, a workstation permanently connected to the Internet. Finally a sound or flashing icon informs your virtual neighbor that a new message has arrived.

Satellite communication

Although facing competition from fiber-optic cables as cost-effective solutions for broadband data transmission services, the space industry is gaining increasing importance in global communications. As computing, telephony, and audiovisual technologies converge, new wireless technologies are rapidly deployed occupying an increasing market share and accelerating the construction of high-speed networks.

Privatization of satellite communication

Until recently transnational satellite communication was provided exclusively by intergovernmental organizations as Intelsat, Intersputnik and Inmarsat.

Scheduled privatization of intergovernmental satellite consortia:

Satellite consortia

Year of foundation

Members

Scheduled date for privatization

Intelsat

1964

200 nations under the leadership of the USA

2001

Intersputnik

1971

23 nations under the leadership of Russia

?

Inmarsat

1979

158 nations (all members of the International Maritime Organization)

privatized since 1999

Eutelsat

1985

Nearly 50 European nations

2001



When Intelsat began to accumulate losses because of management failures and the increasing market share of fiber-optic cables, this organizational scheme came under attack. Lead by the USA, the Western industrialized countries successfully pressed for the privatization of all satellite consortia they are members of and for competition by private carriers.

As of February 2000, there are 2680 satellites in service. Within the next four years a few hundred will be added by the new private satellite systems. Most of these systems will be so-called Low Earth Orbit satellite systems, which are capable of providing global mobile data services on a high-speed level at low cost.

Because of such technological improvements and increasing competition, experts expect satellite-based broadband communication to be as common, cheap, and ubiquitous as satellite TV today within the next five or ten years.

Major satellite communication projects

Project name

Main investors

Expected cost

Number of satellites

Date of service start-up

Astrolink

Lockheed Martin, TRW, Telespazio, Liberty Media Group

US$ 3.6 billion

9

2003

Globalstar

13 investors including Loral Space & Communications, Qualcomm, Hyundai, Alcatel, France Telecom, China Telecom, Daimler Benz and Vodafone/Airtouch

US$ 3.26 billion

48

1998

ICO

57 investors including British Telecom, Deutsche Telecom, Inmarsat, TRW and Telefonica

US$ 4.5 billion

10

2001

Skybridge

9 investors including Alcatel Space, Loral Space & Communications, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Sharp

US$ 6.7 billion

80

2002

Teledesic

Bill Gates, Craig McCaw, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdul Aziz Alsaud, Abu Dhabi Investment Company

US$ 9 billion

288

2004


Source: Analysys Satellite Communications Database

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Slobodan Milosevic

Slobodan Milosevic (* 1941) is a Serbian political leader.
As a young man S. Milosevic joined the Communist Party, in 1984 the banker became head of the local Communist Party of Belgrade, in 1987 head of the Serb CP. Since 1989 he has been president of Serbia (since 1997 president of the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). During his reign the Yugoslav Republic broke up, bringing about the independence of Slovenia and Croatia and the war in Bosnia. In 1998 the Kosovo Crisis started.

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François Duvalier

b. April 14, 1907, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
d. April 21, 1971, Port-au-Prince

By name PAPA DOC, president of Haiti whose 14-year regime was of unprecedented duration in that country. A supporter of President Dumarsais Estimé, Duvalier was appointed director general of the National Public Health Service in 1946. He was appointed underminister of labour in 1948 and the following year became minister of public health and labour, a post that he retained until May 10, 1950, when President Estimé was overthrown by a military junta under Paul E. Magloire, who was subsequently elected president. By 1954 he had become the central opposition figure and went underground. Duvalier was elected president in September 1957. Setting about to consolidate his power, he reduced the size of the army and organized the Tontons Macoutes ("Bogeymen"), a private force responsible for terrorizing and assassinating alleged foes of the regime. Late in 1963 Duvalier moved further toward an absolutist regime, promoting a cult of his person as the semi divine embodiment of the Haitian nation. In April 1964 he was declared president for life. Although diplomatically almost completely isolated, excommunicated by the Vatican until 1966 for harassing the clergy, and threatened by conspiracies against him, Duvalier was able to stay in power longer than any of his predecessors.

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