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.
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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Division of labor
The term refers to the separation of a work process into a number of tasks, with each task performed by a separate person or group of persons. It is most often applied to mass production systems, where it is one of the basic organizing principles of the assembly line. Breaking down work into simple, repetitive tasks eliminates unnecessary motion and limits the handling of tools and parts. The consequent reduction in production time and the ability to replace craftsmen with lower-paid, unskilled workers result in lower production costs and a less expensive final product. The Scottish economist Adam Smith saw in this splitting of tasks a key to economic progress by providing a cheaper and more efficient means of producing economic goods.
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Charles Babbage
b. December 26, 1791, London, England d. October 18, 1871, London, England
English mathematician and inventor who is credited with having conceived the first automatic digital computer. The idea of mechanically calculating mathematical tables first came to Babbage in 1812 or 1813. Later he made a small calculator that could perform certain mathematical computations to eight decimals. During the mid-1830s Babbage developed plans for the so-called analytical engine, the forerunner of the modern digital computer. In this device he envisioned the capability of performing any arithmetical operation on the basis of instructions from punched cards, a memory unit in which to store numbers, sequential control, and most of the other basic elements of the present-day computer.
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