This week in my Internet Communications class we discussed copyright laws that were created by the media and our government. According to Attorney General, Martha Coakley, "A copyright is a form of protection, granted by the laws of the United
States, to the creator of an original work of authorship including
literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual
works, to control the distribution, usually for a limited time, after
the work enters the public domain". The risks involved in illegally reproducing or distributing copyrighted
material are significant. It is against the law both to upload and
download the copyrighted works of others without express permission to
do so. It is stealing and both civil and criminal penalties are severe. If the penalties are already severe and a huge portion of our generation is still stealing documents, and music than how can we stop this?
I believe that one way to at least slow down piracy of music would be for music artist to lower the cost of purchasing there music. When you purchase a new released album from a store, you may pay anywhere from $10-$20 for an average of 16 songs. You may only like two or three songs on that CD. When iTunes came out it allowed you to purchase not only whole albums but individual songs as well. The average cost for a song would be about a dollar. Now that you could purchase only the songs that you liked for a cheaper price, why are we still downloading them for free illegally?
There are several "file sharing" website that are readily available to the younger generation. I want to see the government place stronger restrictions on this type of website. The government should have the power to shut down a website where illegal file sharing takes place.
Since the media is a huge influencing power, they should do more to let people know that file sharing is illegal. The media companies should also inform the public of the consequences of breaking the law.
Ashley,
ReplyDeleteYou and Garrett made a great point about restricting websites that allow/facilitate illegal downloads. I wonder why certain websites still exist when they clearly (or maybe not so clearly) aid in illegal downloads. The FBI must have someone working for them who has heard of these such websites right? Interesting stuff..
I do like your point about pushing the media to advertise the consequences of breaking the law with illegal downloads. I think the current PSAs are misframed by using scare tactics to persuade people not to illegally download content. I think PSAs should ask how an illegal downloader would feel if it was his/her work being illegally obtained. Would they like it to not profit off of their work? Just some thought on the current rhetoric.
Ashley,
ReplyDeleteI agree with a couple of your points. First, I also agree with lowering prices. I think if artist expect people to stop stealing their music then instead of raising the prices of individual songs, they need to decreases the price. I also wrote about stricter laws. I think the government should monitor websites. If they see a website is having questionable downloads, shut them down. Or make it hard for people to get to the site.