Attributes of the Criminal Copyright Infringement Phenomenon

Criminal copyright infringement is a multi-faceted phenomenon. This article discusses aspects regarding the infringement of copyright from the criminal law perspective. The article explains the need for effective criminal provisions and, based on the content analysis of a comprehensive corpus of data, consisting of cases brought to United States courts, law enforcement press releases, and intellectual property agencies and industry groups reports, identifies, analyzes, and groups the attributes of the phenomenon under four main categories: type of works infringed, methods of infringement, enforcement aspects, and loss. An important contribution of this article is the presentation of the findings in a table format. The table could be used to improve the protection of copyright in a number of ways: to analyze or assess the effectiveness of the current legal framework; to develop educational materials; to improved the prevention policies or mechanisms; in conjunction with cost-benefit analysis tools, to prioritize the enforcement efforts and efficiently allocate resources; and to encode and report offenses