Media Piracy Essay

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

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

An excerpt from the article states, "People who work hard to produce creative works are entitled to enjoy legal protection to reap the benefits of their labors." Artists, actors, producers, and many other media jobs work hard to create original movies and songs to share to the public for a small cost. This small cost that is paid when their work is bought is how they put food on their table. Without the money, they may not be able to live the same lifestyle. Organizations should win legal battles over these money-stealing businesses by using emotionally charged language, so media creators are not robbed of potential money. Information found in the text expressed that the law stated that anything of value is considered property. If one downloads something from the internet that would usually cost money, they are stealing, and potential money for the creators of the media is lost. Therefore, organizations should use emotionally charged language if it means they will win more legal

The parties finally reached a settlement of 105 million dollars distributed to the various companies respectively. While the record companies asked for the maximum penalty of 1.4 billion dollars, they hoped that the huge victory would show other piracy sites and services that what they’re doing is not a game. Illegal downloads hurt the people who have put in the hard work, day in and day out. The RIAA’s chairman, Mitch Bainwol said it best, “As the court heard during the last two weeks, Limewire wreaked enormous damage on the music community, helping contribute to thousands of lost jobs and few opportunities for aspiring artists.”

For many years illegal file sharing and music swapping has been going on. Two very popular cases are the MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster case and the A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster case. Both cases differ in many ways however they also have similarities. A lot of music and other sorts of entertainment are being distributed for free all over the internet. What some people do not think of are the consequences that will be faced if they get caught. Not only is the distributor at risk for getting caught but those of us that download the software illegally can be charged.

In 2018 a mother of a 12-year-old girl in New York settled a lawsuit of $2000 because she was illegally sharing copyrighted music files according to www.pediatrics.about.com. Why would someone want to do that? As the person, you’re taking the money of someone else’s hard work. The artist that wrote the song took a lot of time and effort to make it. There are thousands of music artist and stealing their money is not fair for all they do. To stop this from occurring there must be harsher penalties or else artist will not have money to exist anymore or employees or money in return.

The users of these sites could have found themselves in legal fines and possibly even jail time from the illegal use of file sharing. Over the years of its operations, LimeWire had cost the music industry over a million dollars in revenue. The ruling in this case should have driven people to legal sites, such as Itunes store and Spotify, and hopefully aid in users understanding the crime being carried out by sharing these

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit accused LimeWire of creating and running a Web service “devoted essentially” to piracy in 2006. LimeWire used peer-to-peer file sharing networking technology to allow their users easily download distribution of copyrighted songs at no cost. The LimeWire peer-to-peer client software was downloaded over 50 million times in two years since the suit was brought up and an estimated 200 million copies in total. According to this result, the RIAA claims that “LimeWire owes trillions of dollars in damages for enabling distribution of copyrighted songs”.

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.

“Before the days of YouTube and the Internet, a band 's chances of striking it big depended on record companies. If a band was lucky enough to get a record deal, it gained access to a label 's vast resources and connections. The company paid for the band 's studio time, … and got its music played on the radio, reaching millions of record buying Americans” (Majerol, 1). Now, anyone with talent can post a video of themselves and become an internet sensation, only to then receive a deal with a label to continue growing their career. The issue is, with the Internet came digital downloading, and with the growing popularity of digital downloading came illegal downloading, known as Digital Piracy, which has affected the music industry greatly. This issue affects everyone involved in the Music Industry. From the small CD store owner to the Artist on stage, everyone has and continues to be affected by the growing popularity of digital downloading services. Artists, producers, and songwriters lose an estimated 12.5 Billion USD every year to illegal digital music services. Further, the economic impact from [digital downloading] is an estimated loss of 2+ Billion USD (Storrs, 1). This money affects the “little guys” in the industry and the average worker within the industry.

How can traditional (or old media) enterprises such as film, television and music overcome the threat of online piracy and file sharing?

The music industry much like every other industry has found ways to connect their product to the people through technology. Now music is readily available to the public through many avenues ITunes, YouTube, and so much more. As music has become more available to the public the industry now faces the threat of illegal downloading and sharing of music files. Many people will purchase an album through a download site and then either post it for free download to others or distribute it to their friends; while those who do this don’t usually face consequence does that make it right?

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.

Though Jenny, a thirteen-year-old from Kent, thinks a little different when she responded, "I used to download music all the time, but now people are getting sued in America and I'm not brave enough to do it any more"(CBBC). So the action taken by the RIAA has changed some people's views about the downloading of songs, but there sure hasn't stopped the majority. A lot of the people do not even think of sharing music as stealing, when technically they are getting the music for free.

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