Copyright Infringement is Immoral

According the U.S copyright office, is that if you download copyrighted material without permission, you are breaking the law. "Copyright law protects the value of creative work. When you make unauthorized copies of someone’s creative work, you are taking something of value from the owner without his or her permission." ( RIAA) Technology has made it possible and easier to download music for free, but it is legal to do so. When downloading music from sites it is okay to do so, if the site has the official permission of the owners to copyright their music; whether if the sites charges. For example the app Pandora is legal. Pandora is a radio app that streams music. While the user is listening to Pandora, they are offered the ability to buy songs or albums. There

In this paper we are going to examine why personal morality is an oxymoron and how a moral system is analogous to a game. Then we are going to analyze how the ethical issue of software piracy is seen from the notion of common moral system according to Gert.

The legality of the P2P service is not very obvious, apparently. But what about the ethics of the software providers? Is it morally right to enable the free exchange of music, without enforcing a proper compensation to the copyright owners?

The definition of stealing is, "to take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it." Organizations shouldn't use words like "piracy" to win legal battles because it is difficult to classify copyrighted material as stolen when you still have it. Technology such as movies or music is hard to classify it as stolen if the item isn't tangible.

I also believe that if you are a true fan of a certain music artist, then you should want to pay the money for their music and help support them in their music career. Downloading songs for free is disrespectful to music artists and takes away the meaning of hard work they put into all of their musical work. I would tell any friend of mine who supported illegal downloading that it’s illegal and if they really wanted to support that music artist, then they would buy the music and prove their support and passion for music by paying for it.

Piracy is a very expensive if caught by the authorities. Purchasing the copies of low level DVD production can damage the DVD systems. Also some DVDs can have virus that can go onto your computer if viewed on it. In the early 2000’s there were many illegal music downloading websites like LimeWire, FrostWire and etc. I actually know someone who was sued because of the illegal downloads.

Throughout the whole article, the author’s position is clear when he states that ‘stealing is wrong’ even though the author does not specifically state his ground. The language that he uses such as “this indicates that the majority of people in the study acknowledged that to download music for free, in effect, stealing it, was wrong” shows the inclination of biasedness toward stealing is wrong. The author attempts to induce the readers to belief his opinion by providing supporting sources that illustrates stealing is

By copying the music for free, you are not helping the industry in any way; you are satisfying your own selfish interest. This goes against Social Contract Theory, because you are acting for yourself, not the common good. Thus, copying the music because you can’t afford it is unethical. B) The retail price is too high.

The question then became “Just because we can get the music we want without paying for it, should we?” (Tyson, 2000, p.1). This issue of illegal downloads, which is also referred to as piracy, has been a hot topic ever since the introduction of Napster. According to Recording Industry Association of America “In the decade since peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.7 billion” (RIAA, 2014).

We all know that downloading pirated music and films is illegal, but what exactly is it? The term piracy refers to the copying and selling of music, films and other media illegally; in other words you are copying and selling copyrighted media without the permission of the original owner (NiDirect, n.d.). With the massive growth of the internet and its ability to store and capture vast amounts of data, we have become much more reliable on information systems in all aspects of life, but it does not come without the risk of information technology being used unethically. With the number of IT breakthroughs in recent years “the importance of ethics and human values has been underemphasised” often resulting in various consequences. Not surprisingly one of the many public concerns about the ethical use of IT is that “millions of people have downloaded music and movies at no charge and in apparent violation of copyright laws at tremendous expense to the owners of those copyrights” (Reynolds, Ethics in Information Technology, 2015). This essay covers the ethical issues of downloading pirated music and films and the impact it has on music corporations and recording and film companies.

Another Philosophy that can be used in evaluating the ethics of is Deontology which is judging an action based on societal norms in place already. Copyright laws have been around well before technology and they have protected intellectual property as well as the rights of musicians. With the music piracy risk evolving as technology has the copyright laws have as well still stating that the reproduction or sharing of music files is unlawful. “Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act gives the owner of copyright in original musical works, the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to: To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords; To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; To perform the work publicly.” (Digmedia) So since there has always been an established idea that what someone else produces is their property and can only be obtained with a contract and under certain stipulations of usage therefore Deontology would agree this is ethically

Downloading a movie or a song from torrents it is considered piracy and it must be punished. It is a minor crime but still it has to end at some point. If someone gets used to get what he want for free then imagine if in the following years they find a way to get also money for free. What would happen then? It appears only in digital on the screen. Stealing an original movie from the local DVD store it is considered a crime, it is the same stealing it from the web, and the difference is that it only appears on your screen. If you rob a bank in the web and just numbers appear on your account is going to be the same easy thing as downloading a movie in a few

Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it.

There are a number of different opinions on whether people think downloading music is legal or illegal. An Internet site, CBBC Newsround, asked for opinions on the subject. Lee, a fifteen-year-old from Newcastle, clearly shows that he sees nothing wrong with downloading music when he wrote, "I think that it doesn't matter if you download music from the net because the singles cost too much in the shops. If the prices where lowered to around $8-10 then CDs may not be downloaded as much. But nothing will stop people from downloading music files illegally; I think people downloading music are not wrong to download music at all"(CBBC).

Ever since the start of illegal music downloading there has been an ongoing debate. As with any controversy, there are those whose positions stand at one end of the spectrum or the other and also those who are moderate or nonchalant. Many believe that downloading a song without paying for it is not only illegal, but also immoral. None-the less, people continue to download songs, rationalizing that the record companies are getting what they deserve after years of overpriced CD's or that the artists won't really miss the money. Some people are not sure what to make of the situation, sympathizing in some respects with either side. There are several proposed solutions to this problem, but it has become obvious that there is not easy or clear