Copyright infringement of audio-visual works

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Copyright infringement of audio-visual works, often referred to as piracy, occurs when unauthorized copies are made of music, movies and similar works. Incidence of copyright infringement has grown dramatically since the late 1970s, as technology has facilitated the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted works. Unauthorized copies of original CDs, DVDs and other media are sold for very low prices around the world.

Early entertainment piracy surged after the advent of the VHS home video equipment. Initially, pirates would use hand-held video cameras to surreptitiously record movies shown at movie theaters. Owners of video stores might then purchase the home-made recordings of popular movies and offer them for sale before the film's official release-to-video date.^{[citation needed]}

In 1985, more than 1,000 illegal copies of Rambo were found in Puerto Rico alone.^{[citation needed]} Rambo: First Blood part 2 represents one of the most illegally copied movies in history.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1990s, piracy of music CDs began to become an international phenomenon, especially in Asia and Latin America. It is estimated that over 100 million CDs have been illegally reproduced for selling.^{[citation needed]} In the case of music CDs, it is much more difficult to catch pirates. Illegal copies are unlikely to be found at retail stores; the pirates instead sell copies at on-street markets and other personal selling sites such as ebay for as low as 1 USD.^{[citation needed]}

CD piracy affects the Mexican music market greatly, to the extent that some music groups and singers announce their latest releases on television along with messages to avoid piracy.^{[citation needed]} The Argentine and Puerto Rican music industries have been affected as well, and the phrase "say no to piracy" has become a common one among Spanish speaking countries.^{[citation needed]}

Some Mexican singers, hoping to prevent their fans from buying illegal CD copies, have begun to check CDs before autographing them, only continuing to sign legal copies.^{[citation needed]} One sign of a pirated CD is a blank page directly under the CDs cover. Most legal CDs include photos, messages, or songs lists. Cristian Castro is one of the most famous singers in Mexico who checks CDs before signing them.^{[citation needed]} On the other hand, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, a ranchera music group from northern Mexico, is the exception: they told a magazine that they sign all CDs fans ask them to sign, on the understanding that some of their fans are so poor that they can only afford illegal copies of their work.

In 2004, the movie The Passion of the Christ brought film piracy back into the public eye, as millions of illegal copies were found around the world.^{[citation needed]}

Each country has different laws to apply to music and film pirates, which can cause legal difficulties when pirated works are sold digitally over the internet, as it is not yet clear which jurisdiction the crime falls. Most found guilty face a fine of varying degrees, although in cases a jail sentence can be imposed. This is most likely to occur only for people manufacturing large quantities of pirated CDs/DVDs. In some countries, pirates are not prosecuted at all, either due to privacy laws taking precedence over economic interests of copyright, overburdening of the judicial system or a simple grey area that has not yet been resolved legally (such as Russia's infamous allofmp3.com website).

Not everybody sees copyright infringement as a problem. Some see it as a natural evolution of society in conjunction with the rise of the internet, which fundamentally changes the way society operates. Where this article up to this point has largely described the views of the pre-Internet media industry, there are other views. Most of these views claim that, while piracy is bad for the pre-internet media distribution corporations, it benefits the artists by increasing their audience past what would have normally been expected. There is an argument for this, and studies have occasionally shown that people who tend to download lots of music may also buy CDs of artists they discover this way, but reactions to these studies are mixed and the studies themselves may have been flawed in relying either on self-reporting or using too narrow a study group.

Several pro-piracy interest groups have sprung up, particularly in Europe and Latin America. These groups focus on piracy operations without commercial interests, usually so-called file sharing. Napster is the most well-known of the original file-sharing websites. It was forced to close down and reopen after negotiating licences and agreeing to pay licence fees.