Piracy of intellectual property refers to the unauthorized use, reproduction, and/or distribution of protected material such as computer software, video games, music, or movies. Piracy has become an increasing concern in recent years because of the rise of the Internet and the speed with which copyrighted material can be distributed globally to a large number of people.

What is labeled piracy is literally the infringement of intellectual property rights—that is, copyright, patent, and/or trademark infringement. Piracy literally refers to robbery and other crimes committed at sea, where prey are more vulnerable in the absence of conventional law enforcement mechanisms. The term piracy is used in connection with intellectual property infringement, particularly with regard to electronic and audiovisual materials, because of the similar difficulty in detecting and ...