Digital piracy has been a very sensitive issue and during the last year there have been more or less bashful attempts of addressing this issue. Yet, 2 days ago, the Obama administration forwarded a recommendation to the Dept. of Homeland Security to classify the streaming of copyrighted video as a felony and also supported the use of wiretaps in the investigation of these offenses.

“One recent technological change is the illegal streaming of content. Existing law provides felony penalties for wilful copyright infringement, but felony penalties are predicated on the defendant either illegally reproducing or distributing the copyrighted work. (…)To ensure that Federal copyright law keeps pace with infringers, and to ensure that DOJ and U.S. law enforcement agencies are able to effectively combat infringement involving new technology. The Administration recommends that Congress clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances.”

The MarkMonitor report exemplifies the proportions of piracy by referring to rapidshare.com, megavideo.com, and megaupload.com – altogether having yielded 21 billion page views per year. The numbers are impressive if we consider that digital piracy accounted for 146 million page views per day, or 53 billion page views per year.

Some members of the US House of Representatives consider that one possible solution is forcing major search engines such as Google, Bing and so on to be compelled to ‘give preference to authorized sites offering television shows and movies’.

“Unfortunately, search engines routinely point people to rogue websites, including in situations where the customer is looking for a legitimate site,” Maria Pallante, acting U.S. register of copyrights, said in prepared testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. “In fact, sometimes the illegitimate sites appear much higher in search results, displacing authorized sources of copyrighted content.”

The mobile sector has not been passed off either. Growing domains, such as Google’s  Android Market, will also be an attraction for ‘pirates.’  As of now, Google has not taken any strict stand against piracy and at the moment the Marketplace offers genuine and pirated apps as well, damaging the image of the company that does nothing to prevent copyright infringement.

Players in the music industry seem to be much more motivated to fight piracy–they’ve had extensive experience in the area and other industries could learn a thing or two.  A good example is set by SoundCloud, the German company that offers music services on a free and on a paid subscription model as well. SoundCloud decided to work with Audible Magic, a media identification and copyright tracking provider, to identify copyright breaches and dispose of them.

Piracy is a very serious concern and violators should bear in mind that serious consequence result when motivation is high enough. Let us not forget that LimeWire had to close down its business in October 2010 after a Federal court ruling and four years of legal battles.

[image excerpt: LIFE]