Intellectual property (IP) theft is defined as theft of material that is copyrighted, the theft of trade secrets, and trademark violations. A copyright is the legal right of an author, publisher, composer, or other person who creates a work to exclusively print, publish, distribute, or perform the work in public. The United States leads the world in the creation and selling of IP products to buyers nationwide and internationally. Examples of copyrighted material commonly stolen online are computer software, recorded music, movies, and electronic games.
Theft of trade secrets means the theft of ideas, plans, methods, technologies, or any sensitive information from all types of industries including manufacturers, financial service institutions, and the computer industry. Trade secrets are plans for a higher speed computer, designs for a highly fuel-efficient car, a company's manufacturing procedures, or the recipe for a popular salad dressing, cookie mix, or barbeque sauce. These secrets are owned by the company and give it a competitive edge. Theft of trade secrets damages the competitive edge and therefore the economic base of a business.
A trademark is the registered name or identifying symbol of a product that can be used only by the product's owner. A trademark violation involves counterfeiting or copying brand name products such as well-known types of shoes, clothing, and electronics equipment and selling them as the genuine or original product.
The owner of Napster at a 2001 news conference following a court ruling that the company must stop allowing users to share copyrighted music.
The two forms of IP most frequently involved in cyber crime are copyrighted material and trade secrets. Piracy is a term used to describe IP theft—piracy of software, piracy of music, etc. Theft of IP affects the entire U.S. economy. Billions of dollars are lost every year to IP pirates. For example, thieves sell pirated computer software for games or programs to millions of Internet users. The company that actually produced the real product loses these sales and royalties rightfully due to the original creator.
Historically, when there were no computers, IP crimes involved a lot of time and labor. Movie or music tapes had to be copied, physically produced, and transported for sale. An individual had to make the sale in person. To steal a trade secret, actual paper plans, files, or blueprints would have to be physically taken from a company's building and likewise sold in person.
In the twenty-first century software, music, and trade secret pirates operate through the Internet. Anything that can be digitized—reduced to a series of zeroes and ones—can be transmitted rapidly from one computer to another. There is no reduction of quality in second, third, or fourth generation copies. Pirated digital copies of copyrighted work transmitted over the Internet are known as "warez." Warez groups are responsible for illegally copying and distributing hundreds of millions of dollars of copyrighted material.
Pirated trade secrets are sold to other companies or illegal groups. Trade secrets no longer have to be physically stolen from a company. Instead, corporate plans and secrets are downloaded by pirates onto a computer disc. The stolen information can be transmitted worldwide in minutes. Trade secret pirates find pathways into a company's computer systems and download the items to be copied. Companies keep almost everything in their computer files. Pirated copies are sold over the Internet to customers who provide their credit card numbers then download the copy.
Read more: Cyber Crime - Intellectual Property Theft http://law.jrank.org/pages/11992/Cyber-Crime-Intellectual-property-theft.html#ixzz0lTCJhWbz
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