What is piracy?

Music piracy is a general term used to describe the deliberate infringement of the law of copyright and related rights involving the unauthorized reproduction and exploitation of products bearing such rights.

Reproduction and sale of sound recordings or audiovisual works protected by copyright without the copyright holders agreement is prohibited by law on pain of punishment by imprisonment. Penalty limits are determined by the authorities based on criteria such as commercial purposes, very serious consequences, criminal participation in an organized criminal group, repeated acts of piracy, etc.

The most common forms of piracy are the physical and the digital piracy.

1. Physical piracy

Is the classic form of piracy occurs when a person makes pirate products - nauthorized copies of copyright protected products - in order to distribute them. Copyright law not only condemns the acts of unauthorized reproduction, but also conemns acts of distribution and possession, transport of and advetisments for pirated goods in order to be marketed. Even the refuse to declare the origin of pirated goods is punishable with imprisonment or criminal fines.

2. Online (digital) piracy

Online communications and the disposal of products as a digital information facilitated the exploitation of works and products protected by copyright and related rights in the digital environment.

This includes most Internet piracy. Any action to provide on or to the public (in whatever form) a musical work on witch you don’t have copyright, is piracy. Sharing is a crime, even if material benefits are not obtained, and is governed by Article 8 of Law 139 index 8/ 1996 as amended.

Most often, this happens when individual users of DC ++ type programs, Torrent, etc. bring to share files and folders from hard disk that contain protected musical works. Thus, they become publicly available and as can downloaded directly from the computer where shared.

Warning! Legal purchase of a song does not entitle public share. The song that is purchased carries with it only the right to your personal use or within your family and circle of friends. Any other usage of this work is charged separately.