Pirating movies and TV can get you into serious trouble

President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Cyber Crimes Act into law on 1 June, which, among other provisions, states that internet service providers (ISPs) must now report their clients if they commit any cyber crime on their networks.

One of these cyber crimes is piracy, the unlawful downloading of copyrighted content such as films, television series, music, or books, although the Cyber Crimes Act does not mention piracy by name.

Wendy Tembedza, senior associate at law firm Webber Wentzel, told Businesstech that while the legislation does not specifically refer to piracy, it does refer to the theft of incorporeal property, which is essentially the same thing.

Incorporeal property can be anything intangible owned by someone, such as their intellectual property, music, writing, or art.

The Cyber Crimes Act equates theft of incorporeal property to that of physical theft. It states that incorporeal theft is now included in the common law offence of theft.

Stealing intangible property is the same as stealing something physical, it is still theft. (GIF: Eduard van Loggerenberg)

According to the new act, ISPs now have a duty to report any criminal activity on their networks to the South African Police Service (SAPS) once they become aware of it. It must be reported within 72 hours of when they become aware of the offence.

However, the Internet Service Providers’ Association of South Africa (ISPA) has argued that ISPs cannot be legally forced to monitor their clients’ online activity. They have stated that the Electronic Communications Act stipulates that ISPs may be guilty of a criminal offence if they monitor clients’ activity on their networks.

An ethical concern that arises when it comes to ISPs monitoring clients’ online activity, is breach of privacy. If they can track what clients are downloading, what else are they tracking?

threestreamsmedia asked thirty students at the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Potchefstroom campus if they are worried about their privacy being breached by their ISP.

21 of the 30 students said that they are worried about their ISP monitoring their activity and breaching their privacy.

A possible solution to stop ISPs from monitoring your personal activity on the web is to use a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN gives you online anonymity and privacy by creating a private network from a public internet connection.