The Issues Facing The Entertainment Industry

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

There are some other issues like Piracy which prevail in the entertainment industry which estimated cost the US economy $20 billion per year. Piracy prevents the people in this industry to not get their full royalty for their intellectual talents.

The purpose of the copyright system has always been to promote creativity in society and protect the creators’ interests. In applying copyright laws to any creation, three basic guidelines apply. First is the fair return for a creators labor, second is “Fair Use” of the creators’ labor and finally the Progress of Science and useful Arts to further the public good. The application of these three guidelines in litigation for A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, found that the rights of reproduction, and distribution had been violated, in effect upholding the copyrights of nineteen different music companies represented under A&M Records name, this ruling had protected the music industries interests. However it would seem that the publishing industry would not be so lucky, litigation in Authors’ Guild vs. Google ruled that Google’s actions constituted fair use. Under these two scenarios’ the copyright laws’ have, effectively, protected the rights of music artists’, protected the public’s right to “fair use” and sparked new opportunities for creative growth. However, lawmakers continue to struggle to define copyright boundaries between the public’s right of use and the creators right to profit from their efforts.

“The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent digital rights management technology or to ‘import, offer to the public, provide or

Using works that are protected by copyright law and infringing the right of the copyright holder.

In the article “Internet Piracy Harms Artists”, Phil Gardson explains how internet piracy such as online music sharing and other forms of copyrighting music hurts hardworking singers and songwriters. He also asserts that it is imperative that Congress should in act a law against these types of crimes to help protect artists.

According the case study article The information Economy, “enforcing property rights is costly, and this diminishes the incentive to create new products and new ideas.” Basically, once someone access to something, pirated videos, music, and computer games and software can be shared online. The US copyright Group go after IP addresses that do illegal downloads which brings no royalties to the inventors, producers, programmers or artists no wages to industry workers and does generate taxes to the government. And being prosecuted in the U.S. is different in other countries because of different viewpoints and laws.

Today’s digital knowledge has made it so easy to perform copyright infringement in order to create pirated movies. This in turn has increased the amount of illegal digital movie distribution. It’s so easy these days to make perfect copies and then distribute it across global networks. Torrent Freak research shows multiple copies of movies that are found online. Technology has made it more tempting than ever to violate the copyright laws without breaking a sweat. Majority of Internet users think that if it is on the Internet, it's free. But they don’t realize that even public display of someone’s work without proper permission is considered Copyright infringement. Displaying it on a website, putting it on film or transmitting it to the public in any other way are all examples of how movies are facing piracy issues daily. In spite of that piracy continues to grow at an exponential speed. Moreover, movies that deal with copyright infringement has grown over the years.

There are many forms of digital content. All of them can be stolen and this is illegal as is any other form of stealing.

Copyright laws have been in place for over two hundred years.  They are meant to protect from the unauthorized and unlawful use of ideas and media under law, and protect the artist’s integrity. The types of media protected ranges from books to movies, from TV to picture art. In it’s own way, copyright laws have affected society and how media is distributed across the world.

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.

Nowadays, teenagers are living constantly surrounded by technology. Even if the younger generation may not see it, technology has had an impact on different factors. The widespread use of digital technology in the music industry has allowed consumers to reproduce digital versions of copyrighted songs inexpensively, with the help of many software and websites. There has been an increase in digital copying activities and those are most of the time claimed responsible for producers’ loss in revenues. While some people claim that the increase of digital technology has killed the music industry, in fact it has lead to innovation and new ways of consuming and sharing music, such as

Producers of musical content cannot undo the adverse effects that piracy has had on the industry. Because of the internet and the way individuals have manipulated it to obtain music, many people are unwilling to change their habits. Here lies the issue between the producer and the consumer. Acts like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) work against the incentive of many consumers by telling them that they cannot do what maximizes their utility. Producers are thus working against the likings of the consumer. This is wrong.

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

There is such a legal concept as "intellectual property". Intellectual property is defined as the creation of any intellectual innovation by an individual such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. The law provides him exclusive rights to this innovation and is strictly against theft or plagiarism in any way. Innovators can safeguard their property by one or more of the following: copyright, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and in some jurisdictions trade secrets.. Copyrights, patents, and trade secrets are each authored by different Offices. Each is based on the Laws of Commerce. (LII. Intellectual property). Cultural attitudes, in fact, esteem words and knowledge above that of certain other property, since knowledge is something that cannot be as easily duplicated as, for instance, an article of common furniture can. To illustrate the veneration that contemporary society accords intellectual invention, software is more expensive and valuable than hardware sink the