In ancient times, piracy consisted of robberies carried out on ships on the high seas.
Piracy is the activity carried out by pirates . In its original sense, a pirate was a criminal who boarded ships on the high seas to keep their riches. For example: "Piracy was one of the main concerns of the Spanish Crown" , "The viceroy dedicated great efforts to fighting against the piracy that was taking place near its coasts" , "The empire endorsed piracy, which allowed it to increase its treasures through illicit means .
Centuries ago, piracy had a place in the world where it was concentrated and where it was the order of the day. We are referring to the Caribbean . And the pirates found in the waters of this sea the perfect setting to attack ships and fill their coffers. Because? Because there was an important transfer of ships that left the New World loaded with all types of precious metals, among other items, and headed to Europe .
It is important to know that within this type of pirates there were also privateers . These were totally independent pirates, who were hired to be part of the crew of private ships and thus, together with the rest, they could assault the ships of enemy countries.
Piracy today
Today, the notion of piracy and what we understand by pirate has changed. Piracy is considered to consist of counterfeiting a product , marketing illegal copies. It may also involve the unauthorized marketing (or dissemination) of intellectual works, such as films, music records, etc. Pirate, for its part, is the adjective that is applied to these copies: "Piracy is destroying the music industry" , "Metallica was one of the rock bands that most opposed piracy" , "In my house "We do not support piracy: we only buy original DVDs."
It can be said that piracy, in its current meaning, consists of a violation of copyright based on a use not endorsed by the creator of works that are protected by law .
Spain is one of the countries where the most piracy exists and where, therefore, the justice system and the different governments are most trying to take measures to put an end to it. In 2014 , to mention one year, the figures for so-called digital piracy were very high: 4,455 million digital contents. This means that in those twelve months only 40% of access to digital content was legal.
The notion of piracy is currently associated with the falsification of a product or work or the violation of intellectual property rights.
Measures to confront it
Books, movies, record albums , video games and even television series are the products that are most in demand in the area of piracy. And measures are being taken on them. Specifically, in order to avoid the aforementioned piracy, we are proceeding both to close web spaces and to impose much more forceful sanctions.
Due to the characteristics of the Internet , defining what piracy is and determining who is responsible is very difficult. According to certain perspectives, anyone who downloads a work without paying for the corresponding rights is engaging in piracy. Other points of view, however, maintain that the user who only downloads a product and does not profit from it, has no responsibility for piracy.