Piracy. That's telegram?

 You might have heard the tagline "Privacy. That's iPhone". But today the worst-case scenario of piracy is given by the tagline "Piracy. That's telegram". Usually while publically publishing the illegal acts, there is a huge possibility that more people would get into those actions. But we need to publish this article since almost every one of us doing the same illegal thing (intentionally or non-intentionally).

PIRACY

     Piracy actually refers to the act of robbery or criminal violence that happens in sea transports, with their end goal as stealing valuable items (which don't belong to them). 

                  

     But in the current period, the external profile of this word has changed. The Internet has a dual effect on the world. As the downloading and uploading speeds increase over time, the rate of online piracy is increasing every day. Piracy, unfortunately, happens in every field. Software piracy and media piracy are the ones of major piracy happening today. 

      Software piracy is done by copying any software with no prior permission from the owner and making it publically available either for free or at a lower cost than the original price. Downloading Windows OS other than the Microsoft site is a common example.                       

     Let's jump into our chief topic. Movie piracy is a serious problem for the cinema industry for a long time. When it was occurring offline, at least they were able to control it to some extent. Now we are in the era of online piracy not only for movies but also for songs and games, etc,.  This method has grown more intricate and more difficult to track.                               

Why Telegram?

     The most popular way that movies and songs are pirated is through illegal websites. These websites share files through BitTorrents. The Torrent files act as the key to download the actual content. This method doesn't require central servers to download (which is the main reason it is so difficult to stop the file share), it is a peer-to-peer protocol. Since it contains only the information where the data is located, it's size is most in just KB.

credit: Suprbay                                                                                                           

     Telegram is a cloud-based messenger application used for instant messaging, video calling, and VoIP service, also free like Whatsapp. One of the highlight features of Telegram is that you can send files of a maximum of 2GB of any file type, while in Whatsapp it is just 16MB ( but all the messages are end-to-end encrypted in Whatsapp, while not in Telegram)

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      Both torrent file sharing and Telegram messenger are misused, but they're actually great in their kind. Since torrent file requires additional software to download the actual content, while in Telegram it's just instant. So one person downloads the pirated content from the website and he shares it across Telegram. 

      According to the amended cinematograph act, 1952, recording of movies through any recording device is illegal and punishable by law. The punishment is imprisonment up to 3 years and a fine payable up to Rs. 10 lakh. It is said that Indian Box Office lost about $ 2.8 billion of its annual revenue 

Copyright

     Copyright is the legal means of protecting the creator's content. It's everywhere where something is created. Either it is music, video, image, or artwork. Even you cannot use 5 or 10 seconds of music without the creator's permission. 

     

     Is Telegram working against copyright? The answer is no. It's quite impossible to watch each and every file is a legal one. They assure that they'll process the take-down requests from third parties when illegal things are shared publicly.

Screenshot from Telegram FAQ

     Okay, then if I share pirated content on private groups or chats, they can't do anything? The answer is Big YES. Other messengers like Whatsapp don't have any public channels like Telegram, so to respect the Privacy of users they don't take any action on Piracy.

       

Problems

     Though these aren't actually a problem with Telegram, they help for these contents to be shared easier.

     1. Global Search: You can search for any group or channel that is publicly available on telegram. Using this method users search the keywords of their desired contents and they just download it. In this way, it makes searching easier like never. Searching was one problem with illegal websites with pirated contents, now since unfortunately, this cool feature of Telegram is useful for them.

     2. NO need to download files to share them: For the most popular messenger application, WhatsApp, we need to download any files before forwarding them, with Telegram, users can just forward files without even downloading the files since Telegram is a cloud-based application.

     3. When files are shared, the original location link exists on the file: We know in WhatsApp when files are forwarded the forwarded one contains a watermark informing us that this file is forwarded. Similarly, Telegram shows the forwarded with also the name of the group or channel from which the file was shared.

     4. Saved messages: One of the unique features of Telegram is the saved messages, in this one can save any file by just forwarding the file to this chat. Here, users are just forwarding their required contents, from any group or channel as soon as they see it so that they can be accessed later without searching again. 

     5.Power of Groups and Channels: Unlike other messengers allowing hundreds of participants, Telegram allows up to 2,00,000 members for the group and unlimited members for channels, this became a substantial advantage for these pirates. Also, new members of such groups can access the entire chat history.

Conclusion

     So, here were are the conclusion. They create every content with a lot of effort with enormous investment according to it. Youtubers invest in lakhs for their equipment, while the movie production teams invest in crores and crores. We need to respect their efforts, many of us don't even care about these efforts. We need to register in our mind that the only way to watch new movies in either theatres or OTT platforms according to the situation. 

     From now on, listen to songs only on legal music platforms, try to avoid downloading YouTube videos from external websites, watch new movies in legal ways, and forget those illegal websites. Exit every group or channel in Telegram which is posting pirated content in case you are a member. If you find any channel or groups, try to report those groups or channels. 

     Our humble request would be to consider this as a serious problem. It's not the fate of the Telegram group to provide a feature full of messenger application for free. GO LEGAL, SAY NO TO PIRACY.

 

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