The United States of America is a free country, then why shouldn’t the internet be free? Why should we have restrictions placed on what we can and cannot do on the internet? Every day, millions of users share files on the internet through numerous online sources. Whether they download music, movies, or software, online file-sharing can give people access to a plentiful amount of information. These files are often free and easily accessible by anyone. The practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information represents file sharing (Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing and Copyright Infringement: Are You Vulnerable?). Conversely many people see file sharing as unlawful. The reproduction or distribution of any copyrighted digital media or information defines internet piracy. Many people see downloading copyright files such as music, movies, books, and software as illegal. Music files, some of the first types of files to be reproduced and distributed through internet sources, contain the file extension .mp3. Several popular file sharing programs were developed in the 1990s and facilitated internet piracy. Big industries try to combat file sharing to help increase their revenue, however internet piracy actually increases revenue of industries and has numerous other benefits (What Is Internet Piracy?). The copy and distribution of digital files increased due to technology (Torr). Internet piracy, considered a problem all over the world, stands as difficult to stop along with other kinds of piracy (What Is Internet Piracy?). Anything can be digitalized and once something becomes digitalized it will be shared all over the internet (Torr). Canadian and European laws allow for the downloading of copyright files for personal us...
... middle of paper ...
...Vulnerable?" Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing and Copyright Infringement. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
"Pros & Cons of Online File Sharing & Piracy." Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2014.
Torr, James D. Internet Piracy. Detroit: Greenhaven/Thomson Gale, 2005. Print.
Washington Post. The Washington Post, 29 Sept. 2006. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
"What Is Internet Piracy?" WiseGEEK. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2014.
"4 Ways In Which Internet Piracy Can Be a Good Thing." MakeUseOf. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
"Study Shows Online Piracy Is Good for Showbiz." WebProNews. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2014.
Thier, Dave. "DRM Hurts Companies More than Piracy, Developer Argues." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 19 Mar. 2013. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
"Online Piracy." Online Piracy RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
Robbert Van Ooijen. "Why Piracy Is Good For Innovation." 'hypebot' N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
About 5 years ago Napster, a network software application, was being used to download music files. The network was growing faster than anybody who ever started it would have imagined. When artists, songwriters, and all of the other people involved in making CD's realized that this wasn't going to slow down any time soon, they decided that they needed to stop Napster. Little by little, Napster was being less used and it became harder to find the songs wanted until nobody used it anymore. When all of this was happening, other applications were made available. Kazaa and Grokster are probably the two most used Peer to Peer, or P2P file sharing networks you can find, although there are many others.
The Web. 26 Feb. 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/oct/10/music-streaming-songwriters-youtube-pandora>. Luckerson, Victor. The "Business & Money" Business Money Revenue Piracy Down Has the Music Industry Finally Turned a Corner Comments.
“It is estimated that such illegal product costs the music industry more than 300 million dollars a year domestically.” This is why the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is taking a strong stance against MP3 piracy. The damage done to the recording industry in lost profits, increased prices, and lost jobs is overwhelming. In an attempt to put a damper on file swapping, and recapture lost revenue the RIAA has been suing people ...
Whereas Rose advocated better policing practices and improved copyright legislation, Dyson proposed that the de facto legalization of content duplication would nullify copyright law, resulting in a service-based economy with little copyright law. While this economic and legal evolution will continue for years to come, it is this author's opinion that Dyson's model of change seems much more likely based on events and trends over the past six years.
It is first beneficial to know the definition of piracy. Piracy has been characterized multiple ways from multiple disciplines. For the purpose of this paper, I will apply the definition of piracy from the 1982 United ...
“All Rights Reserved” or “Copyright” are items people see everyday, and it means that it is unacceptable to copy, steal, edit, or do any type of editing to alter the original piece of work. This is commonly seen on everyday things like; photographs, TV shows and commercials, movies, CDs, advertisements, books, articles, and almost all objects a person will use, there will be the symbol for “All Rights Reserved” and “Copyright”. When a person observes this symbol and still continues to alter the work, it is often referred to as, digital piracy. Digital piracy is a fast growing crime that has only become more simple and easily available to any person that has access to the internet and/or technology. In the past, it was a trend to have the
Physical piracy-the copying and illegal sale of hard-copy CDs, videotapes, and DVDs-costs the music industry over $4 billion a year worldwide and the movie industry more than $3.5 billion. These numbers do not factor in the growing (and difficult to measure) problem of Internet piracy, in which music and movies are transferred to digital format and copies are made of the resulting computer file. Journalist Charles C. Mann explains why Internet piracy has the potential to be vastly more damaging to copyright industr...
Raustiala,Kal and Sprigman, Chris, “How Much Do Music and Movie Piracy Really Hurt the U.S. Economy?” (January 12, 2012) http://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/how-much-do-music-and-movie-piracy-really-hurt-the-u-s-economy/ (March 31, 2014)
Music piracy is a developing problem that it affects the music industry in many different ways including being responsible for the unemployment of 750,000 workers, as well as a loss of $2,5 billion; therefore, I want to explore ‘To what extent has music piracy affected the music industry market in the United States over the last 10 years?’
Woollacott, Emma. "Netflix Checks Piracy Stats To Help It Decide What To Buy." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 16 Sept. 2013. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
The term "software piracy" covers different activities: illegal copying of programs, counterfeiting and distributing software - even sharing a program with a friend.
According to the book “Pirate’s Dilemma,” “Are Pirates have to scupper us? Are they a threat to be battled or innovators we should compete with and learn from?” (Matt Mason 4). Piracy has and will always be a threat to the whole media industry and of course the economy. As long as people can download for free or buy never been released movies in a cheaper price, there is no way media industries can compete with that.
At the dawn of the internet, many things such as books and text became obsolete, due to insufficient monitoring of internet activity and sites. Individuals were able to gain free access to books and publications that normally needed to be bought, or required a fee. This is something that has caused problems for booksellers and publishers. Now, as technology advances, it also begins the decline of music, software, and television industries—but something can be done before it’s too late. Illegal downloading is a problem that affects us all, either directly or indirectly. Many people do not take it too seriously. They have not realized that it is an epidemic; like a disease that keeps growing as people become more knowledgeable about computers and learn more about how software runs. People openly burn music CDs and download music and movies for friends who in turn give it to their friends; it’s a never-ending cycle on illegal practices. The problem started when Napster came out and should have ended when it was shutdown. Unfortunately, not enough has been done to stop the illegal transfer of files. It’s time someone takes full action and ends this detrimental offense.
Moreover, hackers came up with new ways to remove the digital copyrights so the same as before one downloads music and distributes them around. The industry gets its revenue from selling this content, whether it’s online or in stores, this funds new projects and allows for better products in the future. The public should be aware of this, downloading the content for free, and not buying it will decrease revenue for the companies, stopping them from undertaking future projects. “Production companies should lower the price on their products, I can’t buy music for at least 20$ per album and DVDs for 30$, I only make 200$ per month,” said George Issa, a music fan who spends most of his nights downloading music from the internet, “when there is an album or movie that I really like, I try to buy it legally, I don’t think I am doing anything wrong, they are wrong making money off our backs,” he added.
The first reason why downloading and uploading copyrighted materials from the Internet should be legal is that downloading copyrighted materials positively affects the economy. The European Commission Joint Research Center reported that the profits of music companies would be 2% lower if uploading and downloading copyrighted materials were banned. However, music companies are able to acquire more profits despite illegal downloading because many people tend to purchase CDs or DVDs after watching or listening to copyrighted materials for free. Moreover, the research showed that people who download music illegally spent more money to buy music than people who did not download illegally. In addition, research conducted by the Swiss government informed that one-third of Swiss people downloaded copyrighted materials from the Internet because personal use of copyrighted materials is legal in Switzerland. Even though there is a fact that many people can download copyrighted materials from the Internet legally in Switzerland, the amount of money that people spend to buy copyrighted materials is not f...