Deviance and Internet Piracy

Piracy has become a major issue in the United States. For every motion picture that has been featured in theaters also has been pirated onto the Internet the next day, and for every new musical album that is released, yet there is a free torrent file of the album within the same hour. Even though these online pirates steal music and movies from other companies and make a drastic profit, yet these “rogue” websites receive 53 billions visits a year from across the globe according to Creative America. The persistence of the thieves that break copyright laws of the productions has lead the entertainment business to place a definitive complaint to the U.S. government of the constant notion of piracy. While the notion of piracy was not left

The Three Main Theories of Deviance and Their Strengths and Weaknesses A functionalist analysis of deviance looks for the source of deviance in the nature of society rather than in the biological or psychological nature of the individual. Although functionalists agree that social control mechanisms such as the police and the courts are necessary to keep deviance in check, many argue that a certain amount of deviance can contribute to the well-being of society. Durkhiem (1895) believed that: * Crime is an 'integral part of all healthy societies'.

Deviance is an action or behavior that violates social norms, including a formally enacted rule, as well as informal violations of social norms. Deviant behavior is any behavior that is contrary to the dominant norms of society. Norms are rules and expectation by which members of society are conventionally guided. Social norms differ from culture to culture. Deviance can be criminal or non-criminal.

Deviance is defined as the fact or state of departing from usual or accepted standards, especially in social or sexual behavior. There are many different forms of deviance in today 's society. Something that is viewed as being deviant in one culture might be seen as normal in another. There are many different types and theories in which define deviance, however their are 3 broad categories, these 3 categories are positivist, relativist, and critical conceptions of deviance. These 3 categories are important in defining deviance because they break down deviance as a whole and better help understand the different acts in which we label as being deviant. Deviance as a whole is important to study especially in today 's society with their

Emile Durkheim studied deviance with the functionalism approach. Functionalism argues that each element of social structure helps maintain the stability of society (156). Durkheim actually viewed crime and delinquent behavior as a normal and necessary occurrence in a social system. These societies see the behavior as wrong and a punishment is the consequence. Functionalists believe that deviance helps clarify moral boundaries. It helps society’s moral compass to distinguish the difference between what is right and what is wrong. A function of deviance is to promote social cohesion; people can be brought together as a community in the face of crime or other violations (156).

An article by Anna Jo Bratton, Associated Press, describes well the dangers of my topic: piracy. In the article, Bratton reported a recent legal matter that impacted Sarah Barg, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln sophomore, and her colleges. The RIAA, an anti-piracy and plagiarism society had suspected that many students at the university had been illegally downloading media content. Burg received an email concerning the matter, but she was ignorant and considered it a fluke or scam. The email suggested that she had supposedly downloaded a whopping 381 songs. The letter continued to say that a lawsuit was possible, but they offered here an opportunity to avoid that circumstance. They requested of her $3,000, or $7.87 per song. Sarah, still

Deviance can be defined as an absence of conformity to the social norm. Not all deviant behavior is necessarily illegal or harmful to individuals, these behaviors can range from standing in another’s personal space to murdering another individual. In some cases, it can be looked upon as a positive change or a unique and favorable act. Although, considered deviant because it is not the social norm, it still can have a very positive social aspect or lead to social change. Culture and the societies within these cultures have a significant impact on what is considered deviant and what is acceptable or even lawful behavior. The degree of deviance is measured by society’s reaction towards the action and the lawful sanctions that may take

Starting in the year 1999, a company called Napster opened up a whole new world to the Internet where every song ever made was instantly available to you on your computer for free. It was created by an 18-year-old Northeastern University student named Shawn Fanning. Napster transformed personal computers into servers that shared mp3 files all across the Internet (Mayer, 2008). It became popular very quickly because exchanging mp3 files freely and having any music desired right at your fingertips had never been possible before. However, this program that provided the privilege of having free instant music to download did not last long, it was shut down after just two years by

According to the text A Gift of Fire, Napster “opened on the Web in 1999 as a service that allowed its users to copy songs in MP3 files from the hard disks of other users” (Baase, 2013, p. 192, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The

The functionalist theories share a common structural explanation of causes of deviance . They assume that conformity in society is achieved through the existence of norms and values shared by the general consensus and that a high level of social integration is required for society to function successfully .

To provide a clear definition of piracy while supporting his claims with historical evidence to defend music sharing services accused of piracy. He supports this said claim by comparing “piracy” to the act done hundreds of years ago in the situations that derived from Thomas Edison and the phonograph.

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.

The functionalist theory interprets all parts of society: the functional and dysfunctional. Although crime and deviance may seem to be dysfunctional to society, they are important aspects of society because they help to create social norms and social order. Crime and

The term “piracy” means the act of robbing or behaving with illegal violence at sea (“Piracy”).

1. The legal issue involved in this case is the piracy of music from various artists that is easily accesible to everybody from the website called “Napster”. The moral issue in this case is the music being stolen according to the music companies or the music was just being borrowed by people all over the internet according to Napster supporters. The difference between the two is the legal issue is based on actual evidence like there is a law imposed about this case while the moral issue is based on strong likelihood or firm conviction. The systematic, corporate issue is about the website booming and how it affects the music industry while the individual issue is the persons who makes