Australian Institue of Criminology

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Possibilities for forgery, plagiarism, and other offences against intellectual property have been significantly enhanced by the advent of digital technology. Piracy has become a growth industry, so much so, that it may strain the capacity of governments to control it. Here again, a fundamental policy question is whether state enforcement is preferable to self-help on the part of the individual. Are private precautions and private remedies sufficient in most cases?

Private legal solutions are likely to be more effective within jurisdictions than across them. One would not expect Microsoft, for example, to receive a great deal of comfort from the legal process of the People's Republic of China. Organisations with access to considerable resources, may, however, pursue telecommunications offenders across the globe. A recent example involves the protracted litigation being taken by the Church of Scientology in respect of alleged copyright infringements on the Internet. In a series of actions taken in various jurisdictions in the United States as well as in the Netherlands, the church has sought interim orders restraining the publication of materials on the Internet which are said to infringe its copyright. Such remedies do not come cheaply, however, and one of the problems of private remedies is that they are only available to those who are able to afford them.

Source: Grabosky P 1998. Crime and technology in the global village, paper presented at the Internet crime conference, 16-17 Feb 1998

See also : Transnational and organised crime : Intellectual property crime

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