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Anti-piracy is a term used to describe countermeasures against maritime piracy but moreoften by some to describe the attempt to prevent copyright infringement, counterfeiting, and other violations of intellectual-property rights.

It includes, but is by no means limited to, the combined efforts of corporate associations (such as the RIAA and MPAA), law enforcement agencies (such as the FBI and Interpol), and various world governments to combat copyright infringement relating to various types of creative works, such as software, music and films. These measures often come in the form of copy protection measures such as DRM.

[edit] Examples

• RIAA suing file-sharers that share music over P2P networks
• MPAA encryption of DVD movies using the CSS cipher and prohibiting the distribution and use of DeCSS, while also having the effect of banning free/open source DVD player software.
• "Coded Anti-Piracy", also called CAP codes, as a way to put a forensic identification on the film to trace back illegal copies of films to the source.
• Metal Gear Solid required a piece of information from the game's jewel case for the player to progress after a certain point, making pirated copies effectively worthless without the original jewel case, although the information can easily be found on the Internet.
• Microsoft removing Windows Vista and Microsoft Office from various torrent trackers
• EarthBound (Mother 2) for the SNES, in addition to showing warning screens and drasticly increasing the number of enemies, deliberately crashes itself at the final Giygas fight forcing the player to reset the game. Upon attempting to reload the game, the player's saved games are deleted if the copy is pirated.
• Spyro 3 for the PS1, in addition to warning screens, removes elements of the game including items you need to collect, and delibrately crashes and deletes your game save on the final boss.
• MegaMan Operate Shooting Star has an anti-piracy code on it, causing every step the player takes revealing an enemy.

[edit] See also

• Anti-copyright
• Copyright infringement
• Dongle
• Entertainment law
• Intellectual property
• Product key
• License manager
• Product activation

[edit] External links

• IFPI Piracy Report^{[dead link]}
• BSA Piracy report
• Report Software Piracy
• Report Software Piracy with FAST IiS
• V.i. Laboratories

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