Digital technologies have brought revolutionary changes in the areas of media, entertainment, communication, advertisements and education. The advanced technologies have made the communication, distribution and reproduction of the works much easier at the hands of a common man. Digitalization has made it considerably easy to make identical copies and transmit it to a population of millions dispersed over distances in a fraction of time.
All of this can be done without making the owners aware of it and eventually exploiting their interests. The internet has become a threat as much it has become a need. There are various issues that have posed threat to the rights of copyright holders.
There are plenty of items on the internet that have varying degrees of copyright protection which include images, graphics, news, e-books, videos, etc. Many users have a belief that all information on the internet in the public domain can be copied which is untrue in most cases. The decentralized nature of the Internet makes it possible for any user to disseminate a work endlessly in cyberspace through an endless number of outlets, which make it more difficult to determine whether the work is a duplication or copy of a protected work, thereby giving rise to global piracy. Estimates of global losses from pirated books, music and entertainment software range into billions of dollars.
The Internet in a way presents a troublesome situation for copyright holders as the users become mass disseminators of others copyright material and create disequilibrium between the authors and users.
Cyberspace has made everything so accessible that copyright violations can be made by the user by just making few clicks in the process of copying the data. Following are some actions which cause copyright infringement in cyberspace.
網際網路使得任何資訊、事物變得如此容易取得，以致於在重製資料過程中，使用者透過點擊幾下滑鼠，就侵害了著作權。以下所述即是在網際網路造成侵害著作權之若干行為。
Software and files can be downloaded on the hard disk of a computer through the medium of the internet which is another way, is duplication of the data or work being accessed on the internet. Certain times there are restrictions on downloading a work which if not followed up lead to infringement or even an offence. Copying an audio or video file through companies that are involved in Peer to Peer file sharing (P2P) of any digital music shall also amount to a violation.
軟體及檔案能被透由網路媒介下載在電腦的硬碟裏，是另外一種資料被複製或者能在網路取得作品的方式。
When two or programs or databases are combined or used to create a different work, it is known as derivative work. The use of original works in the derivative works without the permission of the author amounts to copyright violation.
Displaying an image online by linking it to the website which originally hosts that image can also lead to copyright violation,
