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I was inspired to write an essay on internet piracy after I read a negatively connotative article about internet piracy in the Wall Street Journal. I also wanted to practice my writing skills  and expand my vocabulary.
Comments and constructive criticism are more than welcome!
Without further ado,
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In a decade that is heralded by the exponential increase in both the availability and activity of the internet, the applicable usage of the internet consumes a larger proportion of our daily lives now more than ever. With social-media mogul sites such as Facebook and Twitter, information now trends more freely than ever. In a commerce driven capitalistic economy, the intrinsic motivation of major entertainment firms today is profit and growth, which fuels expansion and in turn, creates more profit and growth. Copyright Infringement, more commonly known as Internet Piracy, contrasts directly with the motives of these firms by shortening their profit margins. Utilizing a variety of strategies to regulate control of internet usage has only stalled the widespread usage of copyright materials. With the unstable macro economic climate in the Euro Zone as it teeters on the brink of collapse and the United States budget spiraling trillions of dollars out of control, online Piracy is an outlet that provides a low cost altrication to shift the economic burden from consumers onto the shoulders of entertainment firms which, in turn, uphold and reinforce a strict anti-piracy policy.
In 2009, anti-piracy and security firm Irdeto said that in 2009 it detected 5.4 billion instances of pirated content online, ranging from movies, television, and video games. In 2012, this number increased to more than 14 billion. The Motion Picture Association of America, Hollywood's lobbying organization, has said that piracy of content costs the American economy anywhere from $60 billion to $100billion a year in the theft of content, lost entertainment jobs and taxes lost to the federal and state government. In the movie industry alone, the Motion Picture Association of America estimates that piracy costs the U.S. movie industry approximately $20billion a year. Although these numbers may appear intimidating, the war of attrition against piracy can ultimately be accommodated towards the end game goal of entertainment firms; to make money.
Comcast is an American conglomerate that provides entertainment, information and communications products and services. It is the largest cable operator, one of the biggest mass media, home Internet service provider, and home telephone service providers in the United States. In the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, profits were up 18% on the strength of higher cable operations revenue, improved advertising revenue, and high-speed Internet sales. Comcast also reported a net income of $1.5 billion, up from $1.29 billion a year earlier. Net income for the years 2011 and 2012 were $4.2 billion and $6.2 billion respectively, an almost 33% increase.
NBC Universal, a side arm of Comcast and leader of cable TV, is an American media and entertainment firm that engages in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base. The company owns and operates American television networks, cable channels, and a group of local stations in the United States, as well as motion picture and television production companies all topped off with a few branded theme parks. Profits for NBCU were up 31.2% to $6.82 billion this fiscal year. Broadcasting revenue jumped 83.8% to $2.78 billion while the cable networks improved 23.6% to $1.36 billion.
Although online Piracy has exponentially exploded in the past several years, it does not seem to have hindered the ability to increase profit and revenue margins by large media conglomerates, yet these same firms are fighting so vehemently against piracy. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a United States bill that was going to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. The law would expand existing criminal laws to include unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content and imposing a maximum penalty of up to 5 years in prison. By limiting online free speech and internet rights, jails would be filled up with criminals ranging from murderers and sex offenders to marijuana abusers and internet piracy advocates. With potential access to heavier laws that allow a sharper crackdown against online piracy, this would expand the already limitless resources of these large entertainment conglomerates in which lawyers would be able to combat online piracy with.
In celebration of the defeat of the SOPA bill, January 18th was dubbed as "Internet Freedom Day" in lieu of protecting freedom on the internet. Internet Freedom Day also commemorates Aaron Swartz, a 26 year old programmer who played a pivotal role in mobilizing the anti-SOPA movement, including support from internet titans such as Google and Wikipedia. Swartz believed wholeheartedly in the principles of an open Internet and public access to knowledge.. In July 2011, Swartz was arrested for allegedly harvesting 4 million academic papers from the JSTOR online journal archive. He appeared in court in September, 2012, pleading not guilty. In January 2013, Swartz was once again under the suspicion of the FBI. The prosecutors of his case were targeting him for his open-access activism this time. They had hard evidence against Swartz and his situation was not good. Shortly before his arrest, Swartz was offered a plea deal that would have entailed three months in prison, three months in a halfway house, and three months of probation, and a felony count. Aaron Swartz committed suicide in his Brooklyn apartment on January 11th, 2013, shortly before his trial was set to begin. During the last years of his life, Swartz was thinking about working in politics, a profession in which having a felony on your record is frowned upon. In 48 states a felon can't even vote, a controversial practice called Felony disenfranchisement.
The prosecution of online piracy is not contained in just the United States. In Sweden, a digital data advocate most notable from the creation of The Pirate Bay, a man is being sued by Sony for leaking Beyonce's album before it's commercial release date. Sony claims that pre-release leaks are the most damaging form of piracy. The end results of this are often heavy fines and even jail sentences. In this case, a fine of $233,000. Cases like this are particularly useful in instilling fear and sending a strong anti-piracy message to other file-sharers. Although a compensation of $233,000 is a large lump sum, Sony is a billion dollar entertainment conglomerate. Despite it's last fiscal year being the worst fiscal year in the company's history, with a loss of $5.55 billion, it does not appear rational to spend money on prosecuting someone for a quarter of a million dollars to cover the deficit. Beyonce also has a net worth of $300 million. A conclusion can be made that the primary intent of a lawsuit such as this is not to gain money, but instead to send a message to other file-sharers to discourage further file-sharing.
As internet freedom fighters clash with media mogul giants across the world, one thing is certain; the war on piracy is far from over. As much as this is a battle over copyright infringement, this is an even bigger battle between freedom of the internet and regulation of content found on the internet. The remaining period of the decade will lay the groundwork towards what is and what is not enforceable through the internet, one of the most technological innovations ever created.
 
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Random grammar edits below. In general, you're waaaay too wordy, especially in the intro. Also, this feels unfocused, like you couldn't make up your mind as to what the purpose of the essay was. Are you trying to give an overview of the current legal/political/economic climate? Talk about the impact of the resulting piracy-vs-DRM arms race? The business models that are currently under fire from the social changes brought by a new generation of technology? Argue for some particular point of view? You have a bunch of things to say, but your essay as a whole never comes together to coherently do whatever it is you intended it to do.
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In a decade that is heralded characterized by the exponential increase in both the availability and activity of the internet, the applicable usage of the internet consumes a an ever- larger proportion of our daily lives now more than ever. With social-media mogul sites such as Facebook and Twitter, information now trends flows more freely than ever. In a commerce driven capitalistic economy, the intrinsic motivation of major entertainment firms today is profit and growth, which fuels expansion and in turn, creates , creating more profit and growth. Copyright Infringement, more commonly known as Internet Piracy, contrasts directly with the motives of these firms by shortening their profit margins. Utilizing a variety of strategies Attempts to regulate control of internet usage has only stalled the widespread usage of copyright -ed materials. With the unstable macro economic climate in the Euro Zone as it teeters on the brink of collapse Europe and the United States budget spiraling trillions of dollars out of control, online Ppiracy is an outlet that provides a low cost altrication (that's not a word?) to shift the economic burden from consumers onto the shoulders of entertainment firms which, in turn, uphold and reinforce a strict anti-piracy policy. (gargantuan run-on sentence; fix it)
In 2009, anti-piracy and security firm Irdeto said that in 2009 it detected 5.4 billion instances of pirated content online, ranging from movies, television, and video games. In 2012, this number increased to more than 14 billion. The Motion Picture Association of America, Hollywood's lobbying organization, has said that piracy of content costs the American economy anywhere from $60 billion to $100billion a year in the theft of content, lost entertainment jobs and taxes lost to the federal and state government. In the movie industry alone, the Motion Picture Association of America estimates that piracy costs the U.S. movie industry approximately $20billion a year. Although these numbers may appear intimidating, the war of attrition against piracy can ultimately be accommodated towards (that doesn't make sense) the end game goal of entertainment firms; to make money. (the two halves of this sentence have nothing to do with each other?)
(this paragraph is fine)
Comcast is an American conglomerate that provides entertainment, information and communications products and services. It is the largest cable operator, one of the biggest mass media, home Internet service provider, and home telephone service providers in the United States. In the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, profits were up 18% on the strength of higher cable operations revenue, improved advertising revenue, and high-speed Internet sales. Comcast also reported a net income of $1.5 billion, up from $1.29 billion a year earlier. Net income for the years 2011 and 2012 were $4.2 billion and $6.2 billion respectively, an almost 33% increase.
NBC Universal, a side arm of Comcast and leader of cable TV, is an American media and entertainment firm that engages in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base. The company owns and operates American television networks, cable channels, and a group of local stations in the United States, as well as motion picture and television production companies all topped off with a few branded theme parks. Profits for NBCU were up 31.2% to $6.82 billion this fiscal year. Broadcasting revenue jumped 83.8% to $2.78 billion while the cable networks improved 23.6% to $1.36 billion.
(what's the point of these last two paragraphs..? they're just a random stream of data)
Although online Piracy has exponentially exploded in the past several years, it does not seem to have hindered the ability to increase profit and revenue margins by of large media conglomerates, yet these same firms are fighting so vehemently against piracy. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a United States bill that was going to would have expand -ed the ability of U.S. law enforcement to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. The law would expand existing criminal laws to include unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content and imposing a maximum penalty of up to 5 years in prison. By limiting online free speech and internet rights, jails would be filled up with criminals ranging from murderers and sex offenders to marijuana abusers and internet piracy advocates. (rephrase that last clause) With potential access to heavier laws that allow a sharper crackdown against online piracy, this would expand the already limitless resources of these large entertainment conglomerates in which lawyers would be able to combat online piracy with. (rewrite this entire sentence -- limitless resources can't be expanded, and ending sentences with prepositions is bad)
In celebration of the defeat of the SOPA bill, January 18th was dubbed as "Internet Freedom Day" in lieu honor of protecting freedom on the internet. Internet Freedom Day also commemorates and Aaron Swartz, a 26 year old programmer who played a pivotal role in mobilizing the anti-SOPA movement, including support from internet titans such as Google and Wikipedia. [i](maybe mention "Demand Progress" explicitly here)[i] Swartz believed wholeheartedly in the principles of an open Internet and public access to knowledge.. In July 2011, Swartz was arrested for allegedly harvesting 4 million academic papers from the JSTOR online journal archive. He appeared in court in September, 2012, pleading not guilty. In January 2013, Swartz was once again under the suspicion of the FBI. The prosecutors of his case were targeting him for his open-access activism this time. They had hard evidence against Swartz and his situation was not good. Shortly before his arrest, Swartz was offered a plea deal that would have entailed three months in prison, three months in a halfway house, and three months of probation, and a felony count. Aaron Swartz committed suicide in his Brooklyn apartment on January 11th, 2013, shortly before his trial was set to begin. During the last years of his life, Swartz was thinking about working in politics, a profession in which having a felony on your record is frowned upon. In 48 states a felon can't even vote, a controversial practice called Felony disenfranchisement.
The prosecution of online piracy is not contained in just the United States. In Sweden, a digital data advocate most notable from for the creation of The Pirate Bay, a man is being sued by Sony for leaking Beyonce's album before it's its commercial release date. Sony claims that pre-release leaks are the most damaging form of piracy. The end results of this are often heavy fines and even jail sentences. In this case, a fine of $233,000. (fragment) Cases like this are particularly useful in instilling fear and sending a strong anti-piracy message to other file-sharers. Although a compensation of $233,000 is a large lump sum, Sony is a billion dollar entertainment conglomerate. Despite it's its last fiscal year being the worst fiscal year in the company's history, with a loss of $5.55 billion, it does not appear rational to spend money on prosecuting someone for a quarter of a million dollars to cover the deficit. Beyonce also has a net worth of $300 million. A conclusion can be made that the primary intent of a lawsuit such as this is not to gain money, but instead to send a message to other file-sharers to discourage further file-sharing.
As internet freedom fighters clash with media mogul giants (moguls or giants, not both) across the world, one thing is certain; the war on piracy is far from over. As much as this is a battle over copyright infringement, this is an even the bigger battle is between freedom of the internet and regulation of internet content found on the internet. The remaining period rest of the decade will lay the groundwork towards what is and what is not enforceable through the internet, one of the most technological innovations ever created.
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The narrative of this essay went everywhere from company to their profits, to throwing out data that has no place or relevance to its context, a paragraph about anti-piracy legislation that turned out to be a small yet excessive biography of of Aaron Swartz, and suddenly you end with "As internet freedom fighters clash with media mogul giants across the world, one thing is certain; the war on piracy is far from over."
At the end of reading, I'm having to ask myself what was the point of this essay? It was just all over the place with a lot of meaningless information.
Also, I wouldn't say this is a counter to the anti-piracy WSJ article. In fact, you're basically preaching to the same audience stating that while piracy does suck the money out of companies (that are meant to make money in the first place), these companies make a lot of money to begin such that media companies shouldn't be concerned about piracy.
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thanks for the responses.
How do i get rid of unnesecary wording and how can i organize my essay better?
Whenever I write a paper, I tend to get side tracked and I end up bouncing from one topic to another because there is always more that I want to write about, but as a result i just get a brick of text
edit: I also don't consider this a counter to the WSJ anti-piracy article. I wasn't trying to refute it. You still seem to have gotten the bottom line that the companies make enough money anyways so that they shouldn't be qqing about piracy (for example, a front page article about anti-piracy in WSJ), that's where I was trying to head with it I guess
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One of the biggest problems is that you don't seem to have a question or goal in mind with the essay.
Try to formulate some sort of question in the beginning of your essay. Clearly ground the question with valid arguments as to what the question is, describing it in a specific way giving it a clear scope and definition and why it would be important to discuss it and finish the essay with answering the question with the help of the actual content. If you do this your essay would feel more congruent and aimed than what it is now since you would have no reason to go beyond the scope of the question you want to have answered.
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To eliminate unnecessary wording, read your writing out loud. If it sounds embarrassing and long winded, you know where the problems are.
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thanks for all the help. I will make the edits and changes tomorrow and post a revised version :D
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Did you write every single sentence with a thesaurus in your hand? wtf man....
You want people to focus on your ideas, not the words that your ideas are stumbling over. Clarity and simplicity are necessary if you actually want your ideas comprehended. If your ideas are really shallow and not worth hearing, that is when you want to obfuscate things with fancy terminology. But it would be better to clarify the notions you want to get across.
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On March 07 2013 13:43 iheartEDM wrote:
thanks for the responses.
How do i get rid of unnesecary wording and how can i organize my essay better?
Whenever I write a paper, I tend to get side tracked and I end up bouncing from one topic to another because there is always more that I want to write about, but as a result i just get a brick of text
edit: I also don't consider this a counter to the WSJ anti-piracy article. I wasn't trying to refute it. You still seem to have gotten the bottom line that the companies make enough money anyways so that they shouldn't be qqing about piracy (for example, a front page article about anti-piracy in WSJ), that's where I was trying to head with it I guess
Typically an outline works best for me. Randomly jumping from topic to topic is a symptom of trying to ad-lib your way through an essay... at least for me.
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I think you have the basis for a good essay here. You need to tighten up your grammar and correct a bunch of vocabulary mistakes. And you need to reorganize your ideas a bit. It sounds to me like you haven't quite figured out what you're trying to say. One guy suggested an outline, so let me draft one up for you:
(1) People use the internet now more than ever before
(2) With the rise of the internet has come a dramatic increase in copyright violations
(3) Companies that produce intellectual property say that they are losing a lot of money due to (2)
(4) Yet these companies are still making huge profits
(5) Governments have taken very extreme steps in passing laws and prosecuting people who violate copyright
(6) How this is all going to shake out will be determined in the next decade
That's an outline of what you're written so far. But you finish off with what I've labeled (6) which is a pretty wishy-washy point. Why don't you modify your outline to make a more meaningful argument? Like this:
(1) People use the internet now more than ever before
(2) The internet is a wonderful tool for communication that has significantly improved our quality of life
(3) With the rise of the internet has come a dramatic increase in copyright violations
(4) Companies that produce intellectual property say that they are losing a lot of money due to (2)
(5) However, many of these companies have been able to develop new revenue streams using the internet as a platform (give examples)
(6) As a result, these companies are still making huge profits
(7) These companies continue to fight to preserve old revenue streams that are increasingly losing viability in the internet era
(8) Governments have taken very extreme steps in passing laws and prosecuting people who violate copyright
(9) There is a significant human cost to these laws and prosecutions (eg suicide)
(10) The power to communicate and the freedom to share information is what makes the internet so great
(11) These companies and government policies are in effect trying to turn back the clock on the greatest invention of our time
(12) This fight is still raging today
(13) These companies should accept that the world has changed and that their new revenue streams have replaced the old ones
(14) If the companies won't accept it, governments at least should stop prosecuting and criminalizing ordinary activities
I'm not sure if that's exactly what you're trying to say, but it's an illustration of how you might flesh out your ideas a bit. Once you have an outline like this it's fairly easy to add another concept that you think will fit in well. And it's also easy to change around the order of your points to put them in a more logical order. For example, you might say it would make more sense to put (7), (8), and (9) immediately after (4). It's a lot easier to change around the order of your ideas in an outline than it is once you're written everything out in paragraph form.
Best of all, once you have a good outline, the essay will practically write itself. I've found that when I'm writing something the hard part is figuring out what I want to say. Once you have a clear idea of what you want to say, the actual writing becomes a piece of cake.
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You are a mad man for writing an essay for fun... but also mad props!
Also, nice user name! EDM<3
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On March 08 2013 05:19 ziggurat wrote:
I think you have the basis for a good essay here. You need to tighten up your grammar and correct a bunch of vocabulary mistakes. And you need to reorganize your ideas a bit. It sounds to me like you haven't quite figured out what you're trying to say. One guy suggested an outline, so let me draft one up for you:
(1) People use the internet now more than ever before
(2) With the rise of the internet has come a dramatic increase in copyright violations
(3) Companies that produce intellectual property say that they are losing a lot of money due to (2)
(4) Yet these companies are still making huge profits
(5) Governments have taken very extreme steps in passing laws and prosecuting people who violate copyright
(6) How this is all going to shake out will be determined in the next decade
That's an outline of what you're written so far. But you finish off with what I've labeled (6) which is a pretty wishy-washy point. Why don't you modify your outline to make a more meaningful argument? Like this:
(1) People use the internet now more than ever before
(2) The internet is a wonderful tool for communication that has significantly improved our quality of life
(3) With the rise of the internet has come a dramatic increase in copyright violations
(4) Companies that produce intellectual property say that they are losing a lot of money due to (2)
(5) However, many of these companies have been able to develop new revenue streams using the internet as a platform (give examples)
(6) As a result, these companies are still making huge profits
(7) These companies continue to fight to preserve old revenue streams that are increasingly losing viability in the internet era
(8) Governments have taken very extreme steps in passing laws and prosecuting people who violate copyright
(9) There is a significant human cost to these laws and prosecutions (eg suicide)
(10) The power to communicate and the freedom to share information is what makes the internet so great
(11) These companies and government policies are in effect trying to turn back the clock on the greatest invention of our time
(12) This fight is still raging today
(13) These companies should accept that the world has changed and that their new revenue streams have replaced the old ones
(14) If the companies won't accept it, governments at least should stop prosecuting and criminalizing ordinary activities
I'm not sure if that's exactly what you're trying to say, but it's an illustration of how you might flesh out your ideas a bit. Once you have an outline like this it's fairly easy to add another concept that you think will fit in well. And it's also easy to change around the order of your points to put them in a more logical order. For example, you might say it would make more sense to put (7), (8), and (9) immediately after (4). It's a lot easier to change around the order of your ideas in an outline than it is once you're written everything out in paragraph form.
Best of all, once you have a good outline, the essay will practically write itself. I've found that when I'm writing something the hard part is figuring out what I want to say. Once you have a clear idea of what you want to say, the actual writing becomes a piece of cake.
wow I see your point. The outline kind of just allows a natural flow of the essay. I know this is a miniscule detail, but since you have 14 points, does that mean you are going to have like 10+ seperate paragraphs?
Also unfortunately I don't have as much freetime as I thought I would so I won't be able to edit my essay right now 
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You can make the essay as short or as long as you want. Obviously, if it's too short it won't be very persuasive because you won't have room for much detail or specific examples. I would suggest 1-2 paragraphs per point, but you might be able to fit multiple points into one paragraph -- eg the last 3 points could probably all be one paragraph if necessary.
The other thing that sometimes happens is that when you sit down to write you actually think of more points, and then you think about changing your outline. The outline is not written in stone. However, if you do any kind of professional writing you will always have deadlines -- so at some point you just say "time for this to be done" and don't allow any more changes.
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EPT
