Piracy

	I am going to analyze a small section of crime that has been named piracy.  Piracy was a term given to the stealing of a ship in the age of exploration, but it is now labeled as any illegal theft or sale of copyrighted software or services.  Due to the availability of high-tech equipment, piracy has taken a major step up the evolution scale.  Today, the most popular forms of piracy are the illegal distribution and copting of computer software, stealing cable television, and even cloning cellular phone numbers.

	Computer software piracy happens everywhere in the world and by many people.  There are a few reasons as to why this goes on.  The most popular reason is people just don't want to pay money for a program.  They figure that if they can download a program in two or three day's time, why should they pay fifty or more dollars for that program in a store.  The other reason is that some people want to keep the gaming industry free and to have free access to information.  Computer games and other programs are not normally free, so people put the games on various internet pages or compact disks to be distributed with no fee.  This type of piracy is very easy to do and is very hard to get caught doing due to the number of people that do it.  All someone needs to do to steal software is to go to a "warez" page, a nickname given to these illegal pages, and download the available programs.

	Cable theft has been going on ever since it was offered to the public.  Stealing cable television is not extremely easy, and there is a good chance of getting caught.  Cable theft occurs mainly in urban areas because most rural areas have no access to cable television.  The most popular way that cable is stolen is by hooking up a wire to the main cable wire and then running the other end of the wire back to your house.  This technique has been dying out due to the increased number of patrols that are looking for these odd looking wires connected to someone's house.  The most recent form of cable theft is the use of a "black box".  A black box is a specially made electronic device that unscrambles any movie or pay-per-view channels that you normally have to pay for and lets you view them for free.  The black box is becoming very popular due to the fact that it is next to impossible to get caught with it.

	Cellular phone cloning usually only occurs in major cities.  This is a very profitable crime in most of the major cities and requires a vast knowledge of electronics, but it is also easy to be caught in this crime.  The first step in stealing a cellular phone number is that someone fits a special electronic device in a suitcase and wats in a car outside the airport with is.  When an unsuspecting tourist with an activated cell phone walks by, the device picks up and records many numbers coming from the cell phone.  These numbers are later programmed into a stolen cell phone.  This allows the user of the stolen cell phone to make free calls courtesy of the original owner.

	Piracy, although easy to get away with, should not be done at any time.  Whenever a program is taken for free, the developer of that program loses money from a potential buyer.  This hurts the maker of the product and eventually, the whole economy.