The Morality Of Peer And File Sharing

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 pervasive nature of the Internet has made the copying of music and software exceptionally easy, fast and for the most part, undetectable. The ubiquity of the Internet and the speed at which music and software can be copied is also changing the sociological and legal aspects of computing as well (De George, 2006). For the first time the availability of technology is driving a level of expertise with computer users globally that give them the opportunity to capture, distribute, duplicate and even re-publish massive amounts of intellectual property that isn't theirs (Wilson, 2007). This is forcing the issue of copyright infringement and the protection of intellectual property at a global scale. In so doing, this dynamics is also re-ordering ethics surrounding all forms of digital content as well.

This paper is an analytical essay on global ethical issues on peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing. A history and background of peer-to-peer file-sharing will be given, as well as how it became an issue. This paper will explore what aspects of file-sharing are ethical and at what point it becomes unethical. An explanation of the laws will be described and whether the laws different from region-to-region around the world. The paper will include personal experiences with file sharing, as well as an in-depth analysis on the topic with high-quality industry and academic references to defend a particular moral/ethical position.

Piracy is a concept that intrigues us all. Over time we he developed an idea of what piracy is like, such as the elaborate ships at sea, digging for treasure, and walking the plank. However, piracy has a long, rich history. There is much more to it than the romanticized storybook ideas of treasure maps and men with eyepatches and peg legs.

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.

Media piracy influences many parties involved, including the content creators, retailers, and consumers. Media piracy costs content creators and retailers between $200 and $250 billion per year and is estimated to be responsible for the loss of 750,000 American [2]. The sudden shift in the movie industry has led to the closing of once-stable businesses such as Blockbuster. Retailers are now competing against home-viewing options and have had to shift their business models to stay relevant, such as adding food service and updated seating to movie theatres. While the change in business can be attributed to technological extinction and legal home-streaming options such as iTunes and Netflix, many consumers are choosing illegal streaming such as Popcorn Time, an app that enables free online streaming of movies and television shows using BitTorrent file-sharing protocol. Consumers are ultimately affected when using sites such as Popcorn Time because they are exposing their computer systems to harmful viruses and experiencing a less-then-desirable quality of media.

According to movie star Helen Mirren, “It 'll be the Internet and piracy that will kill film.” With the invention of the internet sharing content has been made significantly easier. It also raises the question, “is sharing content belonging to others ok?” This question was brought up thanks to a peer-to-peer file sharing website by the name of Napster.com (online-piracy) when many big name celebrities sued tried to sue this website. Napster alone had over 25 million users so a lot of people thought it was alright to download this content. Thanks to the sheer amount of people thank download content illegally many see it as a lesser crime, however, copyright infringement is a very serious and punishable crime, artist are not able to make money for their work, and there will be less material produced since artist are not making enough money.

A recent 60 minutes episode put a bad spin on piracy. Big-time director Steven Soderbergh states that "piracy is costing Hollywood $6 billion a year at the box office" however he fails to mention the heavy profits Hollywood continues to make. It's apparent the media continues to make money when one realizes the volume of advertisements and media surrounding us nearly every day. Even with piracy's vast subculture of filesharers, it fails to scratch the surface of Hollywood's grip on the collective wallet of the world. Loss is loss, and the corporations have the right to protect their assets, but intentionally skewing a supposedly nonbiased news program is simply wrong. The American public deserves the truth, and by not exposing both sides of the issue, 60 minutes has failed their duty to report the truth to the public.

In the recent years, there has been a growing conflict between American copyright holders and website owners, both domestic and foreign, over intellectual property theft. Indeed, these copyright holders have repeatedly made attempts to block websites from committing or facilitating online piracy, while websites claim that laws that try to limit the content within websites are encouraging censorship. With the internet as an international user-controlled domain, it has been a long struggle for both sides of the conflict.

Today, movie piracy is soaring and raising more debate as to how it should best be managed. On the one hand, it is argued that movie piracy generates billion dollar losses for the creators of the films, including the actors, the screen writers, the producers, the production theaters and so on. On the other hand however, it is argued that there are also some advantages to piracy, and that this is not stopped as it generates gains for the Hollywood industry.

A lot of people have been taking advantage of the internet for the commission of copyright infringement and they do so anonymously. Charleton, J, while dealing with a case of online copyright infringement, explains that ‘it is a problem that not only undermines the business of the content industry, but also ruins the ability of a generation of creative persons to earn a viable living’. In their quest for financial gain in respect of their work and the protection of their work, right holders have, consequently turned against the internet service providers’ who serve as the middlemen, seeking to hold them accountable for the infringement of the offenders using their networks to commit these crime. Consequently, the issue of indirect liability against Internet Service Providers has resulted into a floodgate of litigant wanting to enforce their right.

Copyright infringement is the unmistakable reproduction of someone else’s intellectual property. To combat this issue, governments have passed many laws pertaining to the issue of online copyright and piracy, though, these laws have not stopped people from committing online internet crimes. However, those who commit copyright infringement online rarely know that they are committing a computer crime because of how easy technology has made it to reproduce someone else’s content. The consequence of committing copyright infringement can vary from minuscule to drastic, typically depending on how the two parties react. Regarding consequences, the ramifications that copyright, the creator of the content to lose revenue and reputation; but they can gain popularity. Organizations establish copyright rights over their intellectual property because companies are trying to protect and prevent the reproduction of their creation or content. On the other hand, there are many creators that do not know how to protect their property properly using copyright. This leads to the exploitation of their content because they are unprotected by copyright laws.

As a global company with high interest in both the music and film industries, it is essential that Disney deal with media piracy effectively. With Internet access increasing globally, piracy has the potential to create huge financial losses for Disney. In order to adequately deal with this problem, it is necessary to comprehend the history and evolution of piracy, its impacts on music and film industries, and its effect on the development of innovative business strategies. This brief will address various issues relating to media piracy in order to make insightful recommendations.

In this report, I have discussed arguments “for” and “against” Software Piracy and Copyrighted Material. The purpose of this report was to inform the audience of the influences of Software Piracy and Copyrighted Material, whilst discussing examples in which this has happened in society today. The main points that are mentioned in this report “for” Software Piracy and Copyrighted Material are Economic Impacts, Demand for Software, The Future of Software whilst the “against” arguments include “Risks for consumers and Ethical and Psychological Impacts” I was able to conclude that Pirating software is something that is still regarded as a crime, regardless of whether it may have positive impacts to it or not, however it also

The actual content producers: the artists, scientists, engineers, software and game programmers are severely affected by piracy. The law-abiding consumers are the ones on losing side as they are paying higher prices for lesser content as compared to offenders. Moreover, they may be required to pay higher prices for recovering from losses due to piracy. Selling digital content becomes a challenge for content providers as they are now supposed to compete with free products and services. Piracy employing internet services to access unlawful content evidently targets the copyright holders to earn profits. Users mainly rely on P2P networks to upload and download copyrighted content without the publisher’s permission. Such users not the service providers violate the rights of content owners.