[Is It Ok to Download Movies and/or Music Without Paying for It? Why or Why Not? Arguments for and Against.

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

After the period elapses, any person can use, print, publish, and distribute the original work. The music industry has been in dispute for many years in respect to music piracy. It went after software and website developers, as well as consumers in the courts (Easley, 2005, p.163). As a result, this may be why governing the expansion of the music industry towards later benefits for the industry; however, not toward those who pirate from them (Easley, 2005, p.163). There is clear evidence of a willingness to pay for online music in general through legal download services such as iTunes (Easley, 2005, p.163). It is clear that some new markets are emerging; for example, services such as 4G LTE combine music with other services. These markets may provide both better margins and better copyright protection to the music industry. Nevertheless, some forms of music piracy may ultimately come to be seen as an effective marketing channel for those services (Easley, 2005, p.163). Clearly the industry is adapting piracy issues.

The Global music industry makes around $43.9 billion dollars a year. $12.5 billion of that is lost each year due to Piracy in the music industry and 70% of online users find nothing wrong with online piracy (“Music’s Last Decade: Sales Cut in Half”). Is it wrong? Is music piracy stealing? This topic is said to have inspired Charles W. Moore to illustrate these points in his essay. Charles W. Moore writes the essay “Is Music Piracy Stealing?” and tries to answer his own question. Moore starts off by explaining that current day pirates simply do not care about copyright laws. He goes into detail about the philosophy, ethics, and morality of the threat to the free exchange of music over the Internet. Moore says, “Digital copywriting is as serious and criminal as stealing a CD from a record shop or a DVD from a video shop” (242). The subject on piracy is a controversial and an argumentative subject. Although Moore gives many great examples throughout his essay, he also has some faulty reasoning such as the root question of his argument is not provable, his factual data is excessive, he has lousy introduction and closing paragraphs, and his views are biased.

This report shows that digital piracy can reduce the growth of digital content. However it’s also encouraged many positives

These industries and artists /put hours of hard work and dedication into their content. They also put so much of their money trying to make something from it. Most people have been brought up knowing that stealing is wrong, but suddenly it is ok because it is online.That does not make much sense, and I do not think it is entirely our fault. It is how the world is now. We are so blinded by the internet, we do not see the wrong in it. People do not realize if they were producing this content and people were illegally downloading it, they would not think it would be ok. They would fight to give these people punishment. They would not just turn their shoulder and say it is ok, because they are the ones putting their hard work and money into this

Economically, $12.5 billion in losses each year is due to piracy in the music industry, $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings are lost each year due to online piracy and almost 71,000 jobs are lost in the United States every year due to online piracy as well. It may seem that these numbers are horrifying, but one statistic proves otherwise. In the statistics for the highest and lowest piracy rates in 2010, the United States comes up the very top of the lowest piracy percentage, only accounting for 20% of media downloaded from the Internet. Most consumers in the U.S. obtain their media legally because they support their artists. They realize that artists are also people working and making their craft just like everyone else. Consumers may download the songs illegally, but if they really loved the album, they would buy the real deal.

Recording industries to this day are continuously launching lawsuits file sharing software companies, one of their most notable lawsuits being against Napster, a pioneer of file sharing software. Though Napster did settle with the industry and started a subscription fee for all users, internet “pirates” are still managing to find new ways that allow file sharing can continue all over the Internet. Industries attempted to target people emotionally by creating ad campaigns describing file sharing as the equivalent to theft; however, these were only met with mixed success. This was perhaps due to the fact that file sharing also exposed the fact that the artists who create the music see very little profit. With the majority of profits going to the marketing and distribution practices of major record labels, society was left wondering where the real “theft” was

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).

As for an example, Boehm in his research describes a copyright infringement case against an individual illegally downloading music from KaZaA, which resulted in a summary judgment in favor of the RIAA in the amount of $750 per song, totaling to $22,500 per 13 downloaded songs (181). David Bach describes in 2004 article for Business and Politics that these high profile lawsuits against individuals who never had any commercial profit from online music sharing, are intended to pose as an example for all other sharers that music piracy is copyright infringement and it will be prosecuted. The lawsuits conducted against the individuals was a great idea of an effort to turn the music industry around, but according to Tyler it had no “significant deterrent effect on the general public” (2108). Looking at the ratio of lawsuits to the increasing number of file sharing files stated above, the lack of effect on public, and the excessive cost of each lawsuit it’s clear that the IRAA cannot prosecute every copyright infringement. As a result, many record labels and artists abounded this strategy (Tyler 2108), which reflected in totally different approach. The record labels and the artists no longer were seeking justice through the legal way; instead, they approach the general public

In February of 2001, the once small college based program now had over 30 million users downloading and sharing music. Even after being shut down in 2003, file sharing still lives on. In a survey done by Digital Media, about 70% of people with the internet have once downloaded music illegally. But is it really hurting the industry as much as people say it is? The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America, an organization that deals with music sales) sure thinks so. They say that the recording industry loses 300 plus million to pirated music each year and that it is “a very real threat to the livelihoods of not only artists and record label employees but also thousands of less celebrated people in the music industry.” They believe it has caused so much devastation in the industry that they have no choice but to prosecute file sharers and bring them to court. Harvard University and the University of North Carolina beg to differ, they say that for every 5,000 downloads, one physical CD is lost and though it does hurt the industry, they consider illegal downloading a “small contribution to the overall slide in album sales” and also states that with the percent of music lost to pirated downloads, the percent of legal downloads has grown – which shows a possible positive effect to illegal downloading.

Music and films are bought and meant to be bought to be enjoyed by the general public, not to be stolen and used for a profit when it is not their right to do so. Piracy has been a big factor of illegal actions that occur through. Piracy, unfortunately, has been happening for years now. People pirate movies and music and give it out to the public to use. While it is cheaper to get than the regular prices of the product, it affects the business of music and film. People tend to do this in a way that will benefit the public by selling the product for a cheap price or posting it on a file-sharing site for others to get it for free. Some think it is beneficial, but others think this is just pure piracy by those who use the internet to do this.

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.

Julian Sanchez, research fellow at the Cato Institute, provides an interesting outlook on the issue of piracy, and what should be done. He compares the actions taken in the movie and television industry to prevent piracy by stating:

Ever since 18-year-old Shawn Fanning created Napster in his Northeastern University dorm room in 1999, downloading and sharing music online has become one of the most popular things to do on the Internet today. But why wouldn't it? Getting all your favorite songs from all your favorite artists for free, who wouldn't want to start sharing music? The answer to that question are the people who feel that stealing from the music industry is not morally right, because that is exactly what every person who shares music is doing. People who download music think it's something they can get away with but now it might be payback time to a lot of those people.

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