Title: Internet piracy and the growth of innovative business models
Introduction
Internet Piracy or Digital Piracy is act of copying any illegal and/or unauthorized of electronic copyrighted content and/or distribution through the Internet. The word “piracy” in came from the word “pirate”, which refers to the act of attacking and robbing ships at sea, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuables.
There are many factors to why people pirate content from the internet. It is a lot easier to pirate movies and TV shows today through streaming websites and torrents completely for free. Therefore, a lot of people do pirate for the financial benefit of without having to go to the local theatre or paying for television subscriptions. With torrents, the user normally would have to download the whole content before they can view it. It is also not so difficult to download a particular song online without buying the song or the whole album. There are platforms which sells music for affordable prices legally, while some platforms forces to buy the whole album. Many of these content maybe available to some countries, while may not be available for other countries. This often leads to piracy as well. The most popular case is the world’s most pirated TV show “Game of Thrones”, where many fans had pirated the show due to technical difficulties of their streaming services, streaming service not being available in the region, or delayed streaming of the show in the region.
Problem Statement
Although some reports claims that internet piracy has decreased over the years with an increase in use of Netflix and Spotify, Internet piracy is still at large, and they are not far behind from infringing content and distributing them. The most commonly cited reasons for piracy is because it is free, convenience, and it is quick. Top factors that would encourage infringers to stop include making legal services cheaper, convenient, and having all content available without restrictions.
Both Netflix and Spotify services are legal, affordable, and convenient, making it a very easy choice for most people to use these services instead of piracy. However, both of these have some limitations due to different laws in different regions and other complications, making some content unavailable for some regions or the service not available for the region at all. Also, some of the content aren’t available on these services as the content provider have no partnered with them. This leaves some people to obtain the content through piracy and other means.
While Netflix and Spotify have covered video (movies and TV shows) and music, piracy is not only through these formats, but it exist in other formats as well, including software applications, video games, and e-books. Steam, Origin, and PlayStation Store provides a digital distribution platform for video games, Microsoft Store, App Store, and Play Store for software applications, and Amazon, Apple Books, and Play Books for e-books. Many of these platforms exists long before Netflix and Spotify. However, piracy of these content are still actively on going regardless of these platforms. Issues such as operating system exclusive platforms and the limited availability of content due region and the content being exclusive to specific platform, are contributing factors to why users would find it difficult to use these platforms.
Purpose of study
In order to fight internet piracy, businesses should understand why people pirate content, and examine the technologies involved in online piracy to create strategic, innovative and creative business models. There are reasons why some businesses are failing, while some succeed. And there are still gaps in the market for newcomers and existing businesses could still take advantage.
This study explores how popular streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify operates, what makes their business model successful, what are their limitations, and how businesses can make use of these models for their innovative and creative businesses, while also exploring into other areas such as platforms for application software, video games, and e-books.
Objectives of the study
– Study the current technologies and platforms involves in online piracy.
– Explores different distribution platforms such as Netflix, Spotify, and Steam.
– Study limitations on some of these platforms.
– Study and understand why people pirate content online, what would encourage people to stop pirating content, and determine whether online piracy would decrease if better platforms are available.
Questionnaire:
To find out how much people pirate content, and understand why. If cheap and convenient platform is available, with all the content user would need, would they still pirate?
Questions:
– Are you familiar with “online piracy”?
– Are you familiar with bitTorrent?
– Do you download songs for free instead of purchasing?
– Do you stream movies and TV shows for free online?

Dissertation Outline
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem Statement
1.3 Research Purpose
1.4 Research Aims & Objectives
1.5 Deliverables
1.6 Research Outline
Chapter 2: Literature Review [2,000 words]
2.1 Current pirating technologies & platforms
2.1.1 Popular pirating platforms
2.1.2 How pirating platforms earn
2.2 Netflix
2.2.2 Limitations
2.3 Spotify
2.3.2 Limitations
2.4 Steam & Other Gaming Platforms
Chapter 3: Research Methodology [We will be doing questionnaires]
3.0 Introduction
3.1 Research Methodology
3.2 Research Approach
Chapter 4: Findings
Chapter 5: Analysis & Discussion
Chapter 6: Conclusion
6.0 Conclusion
6.1 Limitations
6.2 Future Research
7.0 References
8.0 Appendices