Should People Be Prosecuted

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Should People Be Prosecuted For Online Piracy?
Have you ever downloaded a song or movie without legally paying for it? If so, did you even know if it was legal? Many people each day download songs and movies for free thinking it's okay but in reality it is illegal to download things off the internet for free without paying for it or in other words, they are stealing. But should they be prosecuted for online piracy? Those people who download music for free should be prosecuted because online piracy is stealing other peoples’ hard work without paying that person for his hard work and all the time that he/she has wasted. There are many reasons to why people should be prosecuting for online piracy like unauthorized reproduction, the number of people getting pirated files, and the harm on the musicians. The unauthorized reproduction of files especially music and movies causes major damages to companies that sell music or movies legally because people wouldn't want to buy something when they could get it for free. But, what they don’t know is that their sensitive documents can be accessible by others and using unauthorized reproduction of files can also cause viruses that could damage the person’s electronic device and by the time they notice that they got a virus from the website they got the unauthorized file it could be already too late …show more content…

the number for software is 0.8 million, computer games are 1.3 million, television shows 2.4, films are at 11.5 million, and the leading files in being reproduced without authorization in 2010 is music with a number of 111.1 million files being reproduced. And other study has shown that teenagers are the leading age group for downloading unauthorized copies of files. 88% of teens have been proven to get files illegally in which if caught, those teens could be punished by being sent to prison for five years and fined 250,000 dollars for

Illegal P2P File Sharing
875 Words | 2 Pages
Singers and songwriters need to make a living somehow. They know that downloading music is a way to get their voice heard, but they also know that it is significantly hurting the business. "When your product is being regularly stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action," said RIAA president Cary Sherman (RIAA 1). There are a lot of people involved in the music scheme when it comes to who needs to get paid by the revenue. From the sale of one CD, singers get one small fraction of the cost, another fraction goes to song writers, musicians also get some of the profit along with retailers, engineers, technicians, warehouse working, and ever...
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Should People Be Prosecuted
669 Words | 2 Pages
In all, people should be prosecuted for downloading music illegally. Stealing is stealing and there is no other way to put it. Whether it's in a file or in your physical possession there is no difference between the two. People are losing their jobs and money due to the ignorance of people downloading illegal music files. The people know they are stealing and it should be stopped for smaller fees or shorter jail time. People need to be prosecuted for their
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Features Of Copyright Laws That Affect Researching Information
722 Words | 2 Pages
... report also explains that illegal downloading of movies and TV have nearly halved “with 65 million film and 55 million TV shows illegally downloaded in 2012, compared to 125 million and 135 million respectively in 2008.”
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Teen Music Piracy: Innocent or Guilty
1302 Words | 3 Pages
Throughout time, people have resorted to stealing in order to obtain items instead of buying them. It became a problem so consequences were made. Even dating back to the Ten Commandments there were laws against stealing. Recently, theft has become a problem over the internet. Musicians and music companies have lost millions in revenue. Websites such as Napster, The Pirate Bay, and Pandora have made it extremely easy for people, specifically teens, to illegally download and or listen to music for free. Pirating music has become a problem especially because “91 percent of all new music was downloaded illegally over the Internet instead of purchased,” says Logan Lynn from Huffington Post (Lynn). Many, such as the RIAA claim that music piracy is “an ongoing and evolving challenge,” (Who) while others suggest that it is “keeping the music industry alive,” (Issacson).
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Should People Be Prosecuted For Piracy
1052 Words | 3 Pages
Pirating is the same as stealing you are taking something that isn’t rightfully yours’ and it is because of this that prosecution should happen against these individuals. Pirating brings many problems to an individual the most important being it can bring serious penalties with the law. For instance, “is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000” (Source 3). This is the punishment for copyrighting any file such as a movie, play, song etc. The reason for these punishments to be occurring is so people can become aware of how important the problem of piracy is. Also, these punishments are inputted so it can give people a reason as to why not download a file without paying for it like you should. This type of fine can leave an individual bankrupt and having to pay this debt for the rest of their life.
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Peer to Peer Technology and Copyright
6523 Words | 14 Pages
Recently, there has been a series of copyright infringement litigations against Internet businesses that are involved with unauthorized distribution of music files. The US recording industry claims to lose three million dollars per year because of piracy. A report predicted an estimated 16 percent of all US music sales, or 985 million dollars would be lost due to online piracy by 2002 (Foege, 2000; cited from McCourt & Burkart, 2003) Even though this claim has to be taken with caution, as it is based on false assumption that if copyright laws were strictly enforced, audio pirates would become buyers, it is apparent that audio piracy grew to a worrisome level for the record industry. (Gayer & Shy, 2003)
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Internet Piracy: Theft of Intellectual Property
1757 Words | 4 Pages
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...
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Illegal Downloading "is" Stealing
518 Words | 2 Pages
Not only is downloading this media illegal, it is also morally wrong. It is our responsibility to know the difference between right and wrong - downloading this media is something that shouldn’t be done. The artists that create the CDs pay a lot of money to make the CDs for our pleasure, and in return they expect everyone to pay for their CDs (its how they make their money). In this respect, downloading illegal music through peer to peer networks is the equivalent to stealing a CD from an actual store.
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Illegally Downloading Music, Movies and all Copywrighted Materials
961 Words | 2 Pages
Besides the obvious ethical and legal issues there are other problems that many people have to deal with because of piracy. Along with any illegally downloaded material you also run the risk of exposing your computers to dangerous viruses, malware, spyware, or other unwanted software, all of these can cause your computer to run more slowly and possibly crash this can lead to costly computer repairs, loss of irreplaceable files, and in the worst cases identity theft.
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The Most Overlooked Crime: Piracy
868 Words | 2 Pages
There are a lot of people who download music and movies without paying. The main reason that this is such a big issue is because piracy substitutes for a legitimate transaction; for example, someone who would have originally bought a DVD of the movie Young Guns but instead downloads it for free on The Pirate Bay. In this case, the person pirating the movie or song would never have bought it. This happens frequently if the “pirate” lives in a relatively poor country, like China, and is simply unable to afford to pay for the films and music he or she downloa...
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Media Piracy
1327 Words | 3 Pages
In today’s technological age and consumer-driven economy, there is no doubt that media piracy and file sharing are in demand and makes a big business. Not only the so called “bootlegged” materials cost less, but most of it also managed to completely imitate the quality of the original materials. It is much easier to people to download movies or music online or buy bootlegged DVDs for 5 dollars than to watch the movie in theaters or pay for the whole CD when there is only one song that the person likes. People know about the possible consequences of these actions, but they do not have a choice especially in these times of economy recession, plus everyone nowadays is doing it, so it would not be considered such a big deal at all if they illegally download or purchase copyright materials. On the other hand if everyone is doing it, why there are still some people getting caught? Not that they should not be punished, but being put into jail and paying a fine that is ridiculously impossible to pay are just practically harsh. Maybe if those people are business tycoons of counterfeit materials, but the fact that most of those people getting caught are just ordinary people trying to be practical and doing what the rest of the world is doing which is doing these “illegal” downloading or purchasing bootlegged movies and music. The government and the entertainment industries are using ordinary people as scapegoats and have been doing draconian methods in moms, children and maybe even old people by suing them for downloading or sharing pirated materials for free, because of the fact that they are having a hard time pursuing the big time “master minds,” who are making a profit out of someone else’s work.
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Against Illegal Downloading
1304 Words | 3 Pages
As explained above, illegal downloading is a great problem affecting the entertainment industry and could soon be an even bigger problem for consumers. Downloading copyrighted material illegally is just as unlawful as stealing from a store or someone’s personal item. To prevent shutting down businesses and industries, internet pirates must be stopped and actively sought after. So if one is downloading material illegally take in to mind what harm it can do to and who is being hurt in the process. Free does not mean that it’s moral or fine; one must analyze and see the consequences of such actions before they continue—otherwise, it could be the end of something great because people were stealing and driving companies out of business, with no force stopping them.
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Digital Piracy
369 Words | 1 Pages
And no one can track the people behind the illegal websites. Production companies took a bold step forward by uploading their content online. People now are not obliged to buy a full album to listen to one song, for a minimal fee you can buy the track you want, the same goes for movies and electronic publications. The downloaded files though will be digitally protected so that only the person who downloads them can use them, and he can’t share them at home or with friends. Even with this step from production companies, a large portion of people who download music still do it for free.
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Illegal Downloading of Music on the Internet
1561 Words | 4 Pages
...llegally is actually helping them. The fans who listen to the music are the ones whose opinions matter the most and the ones who shape the music. So when one downloads a song, they are making that song become more popular. Tom Durrant points out, “Without it, we wouldn’t have Spotify and a summer full of packed out arenas” (Durrant). These downloads, even though they may be illegal, are what is making these songs and artists so popular. It can also be argued that “illegal downloads boost legal downloads” (Rothman). Some people believe that others download music illegally for the songs they never would have spent money on. It can also be argued that if the music had not been there for illegal downloading, most people would not have even listened to that music at all. But the main problem in the matter is still that illegal downloading will cause more harm than good.
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Downloading and Uploading Copyrighted Materials Should be Legal
646 Words | 2 Pages
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...
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Should People Be Prosecuted

Illegal P2P File Sharing