Digital Piracy in the Third World Countries

Author: Fransiskus Asisi Arya Seta Wicaksana
Editor: M Perdana Karim

Digital Piracy is just like an everyday custom that was practiced in third-world countries. The notion and term of piracy are often seen as a crime among first world countries but it’s different among the third world countries [1]. Such as Indonesia is an example of a third-world country, and there are still many stores of digital entertainment, computer software, and games that are selling pirated versions of its content [2]. It’s also common to experience the youtube tutorial of “how to download … free” which guides viewers to download cracked, pirated, and free software without really knowing is it a crime or not [3]. The absence of law or legal statements and the culture of digital literacy in third world countries. As an example, the German government strictly forbids its citizens to download any pirated content with the responsibility for its violators to pay compensation [4]. Also, Australia is still fighting piracy by harshly shutting down torrenting sites even though torrenting sites not only share copyrighted content [5]. Ironically, how piracy works in third world countries is quite interesting to see how the pirated content is sold in online stores and even offline stores, even though digital piracy isn’t third world countries’ exclusive issue, the phenomenon is unique and needs to be reviewed and rethink. Through exploring many cases of piracy in third-world countries, this article aims to explain and analyzes why and how digital piracy is happening in third-world countries.

Causes of Digital Piracy in The Third World Countries

Digital Piracy is a general term covering a “wide variety of activities, including counterfeiting, pirating, bootlegging, home taping, tape trading, and online file sharing” [6]. In digital content such as music, software, and other creative ephemera, it’s more suitable called intellectual property piracy [7]. Digital piracy on the global scene (both in more developed countries and developing countries) is related to the behavior of internet users [8]. The familiarity with the internet technology such as search engines, knowledge of pirating sites, and also the fast searching ability have been the main causes of how easy a person to engage in piracy on their daily use of the internet [9]. Online copyright infringement on the global scene is not bound by age, race, or even computer skills [10]. The reason is easily explained with this question: “where there is something free, why do we still need to pay?”

A 2011 study has explained the main causes of why media piracy is happening in developing countries. Simply because it cost too much, even DVD might cost people an hour’s wage in developing countries [11]. Media piracy is also being practiced in developing countries because there is no “culture of copyright” [12]. There is also a statement that said countries with low average incomes and high unemployment rates are particularly vulnerable to digital piracy. Indonesia was reported to have a high percentage (84%) of software piracy, and approximately 6 million people in Indonesia are doing illegal downloads of music [13].

Digital piracy is even called a common practice in Asia. A “practice” related to the custom of pre-colonial Indonesian and other customary laws of Asian countries [14]. In the Indonesian case, customary laws of many ethnicities generally do not recognize ownership of intellectual works or inventions, so the concept of illegally file-sharing could be understood as “for public goods” [15].

Patterns of Digital Piracy in the Third World Countries

The reasons why digital piracy seemed to be third world countries’ exclusive issue is because of economical reasons also driven by cultural reasons. Research shows that countries with low GDP are highly engaged with unlicensed software [16] and being helped with cultural issues. In third-world countries, the price of licensed software could take ten times more expensive than in the first-world countries [17]. The ease to access information to search licensed software for free with the cracked version or key generator version are being the causes of high digital piracy in the third world countries. With the customary law of “sharing” in Indonesia as an example of the third world, countries made the “piracy” unconsciously legal. Even with law and enforcement, digital piracy as an international problem couldn’t easily be erased on the internet. The importance of a culture of knowing intellectual property and copyright through education is still being the most effective way. The producer of digital content must be kind enough to understand the accessibility of third-world countries’ citizens. There are so many things to consider to face this issue, however piracy in intellectual property is a problem whenever the creator isn’t receiving enough, but the equality of access still needs to be reviewed again.

[1] Karaganis, J. (2011) Media piracy in emerging economies, Media.

[2] CNBC (2020) Duh! Bagas31 & Kuyhaa Jual Software di Tokopedia & Shopee, CNBC Indonesia. Available at: https://www.cnbcindonesia.com/tech/20200709174055-37-171558/duh-bagas31-kuyhaa-jual-software-di-tokopedia-shopee (Accessed: 13 April 2022).

[3] TEKNISIPC, 2021. FREE ! INSTALL ADOBE PREMIERE PRO 2021. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eYYEphf2AE> [Accessed 13 April 2022].

[4] Help Me: I was caught illegaly downloading in Germany (2021) Settle in Berlin. Available at: https://www.settle-in-berlin.com/illegal-file-sharing-germany-letter-cease-desist-warning/ (Accessed: 13 April 2022).

[5] Jansen, B. (2022) Torrenting and Privacy in Australia: Is It Illegal, VPN Alert. Available at: https://vpnalert.com/guides/torrenting-privacy-australia (Accessed: 13 April 2022).

[6] Ghofari, G. (2016) ‘Digital Piracy’, CfDS Case Study Series.

[7] Bernat, F. P. and Makin, D. (2014) ‘CYBERCRIME THEORY AND DISCERNING IF THERE IS A CRIME : THE CASE OF DIGITAL PIRACY’, International Review of Modern Sociology, 40(2), pp. 99–119.

[8] Joel, W. (2017) ‘How Digitization Has Created a Golden Age of Music , Movies , Books , and Television’, the Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(3), pp. 195–214.

[9] Dawdy, S. L. and Bonni, J. (2012) ‘Towards a General Theory of Piracy’, Anthropological Quarterly, 85(3), pp. 673–699. doi: 10.5198/jtlu.2020.1660.

[10] ibid

[11] Doctorow, C. (2011) Why poor countries lead the world in Piracy, The Guardian.

[12] ibid

[13] Tejokusumo, A. (2014) Challenges and regulatory changes in addressing digital piracy in Indonesia. Trinity Western University.

[14] Arli, D. and Tjiptono, F. (2016) ‘Consumer digital piracy behaviour among youths: insights from Indonesia’, Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 28(5), pp. 898–922. doi: 10.1108/APJML-11-2015-0163.

[15] ibid

[16] ibid

[17] Karaganis, J. (2011) Media piracy in emerging economies, Media.