Internet piracy is a very common act and is illegal to the core. Piracy is the unauthorized use or reproduction of copy written or patented material. On the internet it is very simple to commit piracy of music and movies and all sorts of other works. Can this act be stopped? Realistically, will it be stopped if possible? Lets examine.
Internet piracy is much too common in this day and age. Many people go out of their way in finding "the easy way" or the "free way" to do things. With a some what broad knowledge of the internet one can create avenues for other people to easily "steal" music, movies, tv shows, books, ect. Any work is up for grabs. The most common internet piracy practice is that of songs. Rarely does anyone buy music in a music store anymore, which is fine because times are changing and it is a lot easier to buy songs at home on your computer than drive down to the store and buy a whole cd when maybe you just want one song. Itunes is the most widely known online music store. Many people don't use itunes store though, they download music illegally on different download applications such as limewire, frostwire, napster. The idea of free music seems very appealing, I have to agree. What is not often considered though, are the artists that create these great songs that make your day or give you a theme. The artists and producers and writers and labels lose money when we so easily download illegal "free" music. There has been many different application downloads shut down such as "napster" and "Rhapsody" which were turned into companies that charge a monthly fee for unlimited music selection. In the Music and Culture text this practice is referred to as the "heavenly jukebox" which is about right on target for a good description. Other applications were also such down due to legal action taken against them such as "limewire" which is now no more and any songs that were downloaded using this softwear were erased from the users computer. These are great moves that are being made to end the act of piracy. There are still companies out there and ways around buying music. Frostwire is a tad more complicated but that is also out there to download free music. There is also a new practice of turning YouTube videos into mp3 files. Considering YouTube videos are free to access it opens the door for a wide variety of songs to be downloaded and played in an mp3 player easily and freely.
There are constantly new ways being found to get free music. Is it right? no it is legally stealing and an insult to the musician because when taking music illegally you are basically disrespecting the artist and saying their music isn't worth purchasing but worth listening to. It is rude and it isn't right. When I say it is "free" music, I use the term loosely because it is free to US but the artists pay for our decisions in not purchasing the music we like. There are actions being made everyday to stop the piracy of music and all other entertainment art forms but there is still much to be done. I think we should all just respect the musician and buy their music like upstanding citizens but if everyone was an upstanding citizen this world would be improved in more ways than just the lack of piracy.
I don’t know whether we think similar or it is just a coincidence Karianne, but we always seem to write about the same things. Yes, there are variations in our responses but they are generally talking about the same concept. Anyways to my main point, I would have to agree with you entirely on what you said piracy. That it is disrespecting the artist. You said what it was I was trying to say. I couldn’t think of the words at the time. “Saying their music isn’t worth purchasing but worth listening to.” I thought that was great, simple and effective. I got the disrespect part but don’t think I explained it that well. Along with the ways with downloading free music, I was having issues on thinking of their names. I think though that with all of this illegal downloading that is going on, that the government may resort to invasion of privacy actions. As more people get internet savy, the hacking and applications are becoming more complicated and harder to shut down. With this happening, the Government might start searching people’s hard drives and monitoring their internet access. Granted this would still be a hard task, but I wouldn’t put it out as an option. Hopefully it doesn’t get to that point, because that would cause more troubles by solving one.
ReplyDeleteYou have many good points and I understand what your trying to say. It is a whole lot easier getting music online and cheaper too if you want one or two songs off of an album. I don’t feel that it is really being disrespectful to a musician by downloading their songs off of the internet. There are many people that are fan’s of all different artist, but some of them can’t afford to buy every album that comes out. They are still supporting them and getting their music out there for other’s to hear. In a way they are repaying the musician. They are repaying them by promoting their music. They may not be “upstanding citizens” in a sense for purchasing the music, but they are keeping the musicians in the spotlight. Piracy is a main concern, but it is being done so much more often that I really don’t see it completely stopping. The best thing that we can really do is spread the word and let other’s know how important it is to purchase music or movies from the store and not illegally. I guess that in the end all we can do is our part in making a little difference.
ReplyDeleteYour right the MC Donald philosophy of today has corrupted the minds of are society.People will go to any extreme to save a buck. File Sharing systems like Limewire, Napster and others have putt a serious dent into the music industry. The music industry is a business and they need money to stay alive. Now if one million people stole one song that ranges at a base of one dollar that's a million dollars stolen but what they steal a whole album that priced at twenty dollars than that forty million dollars that's an artist cover. So if there losing that much money than what the heck? Also your right in the sense that it is a disrcept to file share. A story that can coside with this is that a man named Pete Derey remixed a track for Armada a dutch trance label and his remix got top 15 for a month in A State of Trance radio show. So what happend is Armada wanted to buy the track but they only offered Pete 20 dollars American . Now thats a sign that the music industry has gotten a lot worse than they have before.
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