ABSTRACT
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) was the beginning of a quiet revolution in the way that property rights in information would be defined and enforced in the emerging global information economy. Piracy is one of the world's oldest professions. Under Elizabeth's reign, piracy became a large-scale business involving old aristocratic families and high-ranking navy officers. North America, just like England, has its rich history of institutionalized piracy. Fostering piracy through pricing is a bit of history that tends to repeat itself. US software corporations helped to create the piracy of their software products. Companies like Microsoft are not naive enough to think that the money they spend on publicizing the problem of intellectual property piracy will cause a reordering in the public mind of criminal law enforcement priorities. Copyright and trademarks are today routinely used by international business to segment global markets.
