Reality check - Humans are copying machines. We learn by imitating one another, That's how we learn to speak. That's how we learn social norms. That's how culture happens. Everything we do is an invitation to copy. And now, thanks to digitization and the Internet, we can express that in ways that we could'nt before. The internet is the ultimate copying machine (i.e. illegally downloading copyrighted music and remixing music to make new songs ) and it's affecting many business especially media and entertainment.
DVD pirates - Look at DVD pirates on Main Steet. They release films on DVD for US$5 just as Hollywod releases the fim in theaters.
Fashion pirates - Copy the 3-D design of garments, they can create trends. Trends can be disseminated so quickly and the new rapidly becomes old, we have season in fashions.
Music pirates - Most music remixes falls on the wrong side of copyright laws because they involve pirated samples, music clips and trade marks that are mashed up and reused.
Software pirates - iPhone firmware code was hecked and circumvented in order to be sold to black market resulting million dollar losses of revenue to Apple.
Piracy has ingrained into our culture and economy because of impact of remix culture and the open source movement. They are based on sharing and ultimately they are more powerful than most intellectual property law because they operate in the public domian, which is idefinable and mutable.
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