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The Negative Impact of Piracy on Creativity

The Negative Impact of Piracy on Creativity

A woman is recording music

A survey showed that 67% of the people who download music don’t care if the file is pirated or not. You may think that accessing content without paying for it doesn’t harm anyone, but it takes money from rightful owners and gives it to criminals and pirates.

Pirated content is one of the biggest problems in the entertainment industry, whether it’s a record company or a streaming service provider. Anyone with an internet connection and a smart device has access to free pirated entertainment content at their fingertips. Despite anti-piracy solutions and security software, sources like torrents, cyberlockers, and dark web marketplaces offer pirated products, stealing billions in revenue from artists.

How Piracy Affects Creativity

It isn’t just big industries and organizations losing their money. Content creators and artists are affected most by piracy. Countless brainstorming sessions, retakes, emotions, stress, and months or years of effort go into producing a single piece of content. When creative artists see their work being sold by someone else, it often takes away all their confidence and motivation.

Pirated content has lower quality than its original counterpart, so when an artist observes that people are okay with low-quality content, they don’t put the same effort into it. This affects their work’s quality, effectiveness, and overall creative process. Eventually, they become demotivated and switch their careers, and people lose talented artists.

Other Damaging Consequences

Emerging Talent is Exploited

When a business loses its revenue to pirates, it cuts the artists’ income. Emerging artists are forced to work for free, and a huge chunk of the royalties go to the business owners. Many creatives are struggling to make a living, let alone earn profits on their work.

Many young artists produce their content independently using new platforms and advanced technology. They invest in equipment, location, post-production, and handle other expenses to produce songs or videos. Losing revenue streams can put them in a financial crisis with not enough funds to produce more content.

Consumers’ Loss

Downloading pirated content is quite dangerous for users because it puts their devices at risk. Many people who downloaded pirated content expose their devices to malware. This malware can hack, steal, delete or encrypt your data and even allow cybercriminals to spy on your device without your permission.

How to Tackle Piracy

  • Many artists have increased their concert ticket prices to make up for the money they lost in revenue.
  • Artists are offering their music at a lower price with incentives such as free merchandise to attract more users.
  • Anti-piracy protection services help artists monitor and takedown any pirated content from the internet, restoring their control over their revenue streams.
 A person holding CDs of pirated music

At the end of the day, piracy is theft, and it is illegal with many consequences for the economy, society, creativity, and consumers. If you’re downloading or consuming pirated content, think of all the damage you’re doing to creative artists.

If you’re a creator who needs protection from pirates and cybercriminals, you can reach out to us. At Onsist, we offer anti-piracy protection to brands and individuals to protect their revenue and content. You can also get threat intelligence solutions, copyright protection and anti-counterfeiting services from us. Contact us for details.

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