In Singapore, internet piracy has been on the rise. According to Lay (2014), a study estimated that 3 out of 5 Singaporeans are guilty of internet piracy. Internet piracy has a detrimental impact to the entertainment industry in profits and sales. Current site-blocking solutions have yet to show results, therefore The problem has to be solved through increasing the punishment of internet pirates and also reducing the price of the product from legalised producers.
Internet piracy affects the operation of the entertainment, and gaming industry. As people can get movies, video games and music through illegal download for free, they do not need to spend the high price to get the things they want. However, illegal downloading leads to business losses for these industries. In Singapore, music sales have dropped from an initial $29.8 million in 2009 to $16.4 million and this has led to famous music retail chains in Singapore to cease their operation (Lay, 2014). If this issue continues to persist, there will be lesser movies, music and games for the people to choose from because these industries will be reluctant to produce the goods since it is not profitable to them. Hence, the quality and quantity of the entertainment and gaming industry will be significantly reduced.
In Singapore, the government has been actively trying to deter Singaporeans from illegally downloading files. The government is imposing site-blocking to deter Singaporeans from sharing illegal copyrighted files with one another (Lay, 2014). Site-blocking forces Singaporeans to buy the files they want legally from the relevant industries. However, the effectiveness of site-blocking is limited. According to Lay (2014), experienced pirates can bypass the blocked websites by using proxies and virtual private networks. Moreover, there is a huge amount of websites that are facilitating illegal piracy and it is almost impossible to block them all. Therefore, site-blocking might only prevent the less tech-savvy from committing illegal downloads, but certainly not the more experienced ones.
One solution to reducing illegal piracy is to increase the punishment of online piracy while continuing to implement site-blocking. This solution limits the number of websites users can go todo illegal downloading but also when caught, they serve a bigger penalty than before which includes an extension of jail sentence or paying a higher amount of fine. This shows that the Singapore government does not tolerate illegal piracy and by increasing the punishment of online piracy, it might deter users from illegal downloading. Next, the entertainment, gaming industries can also reduce the price of their products. According to Benton (2015), Sportify, a legalised low cost music provider, is a big hit among its consumers, having an estimated 15 million paying users. This shows that users do not mind paying for movies, games or music if it is not too expensive for them. These solutions will significantly reduce piracy.
Online piracy has a huge impact to the quantity and the quality of the end products of the entertainment and gaming industries if it is not controlled. Site-blocking is not as effective as expected; however, this can be improved by increasing the punishment of illegal downloading acts and also reducing the price of these products from legalised providers can help to reduce the problem of illegal piracy in Singapore.
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