We're nearing the end of a decade and this week, TIME is commemorating this decade with TIME Frame articles. Some people they thought worth mentioning were "The Men Who Stole the World", the 2000 predecessors of Steve Jobs and his iTunes. In 1999 19 year old Shawn Fanning wrote Napster, the online music sharing service and although Napster is practically dead Fanning revolutionized the entertainment industry. Following him were various hackers and programmers who created other ways to pirate music, movies and more such as Gnutella, Snocap, doubleTwist, Bit Torrent and Limewire. The government, entertainment industry executives and lawyers may see them as threats who are pirating and bringing down the entertainment industry however, many teenagers probably worship them because we can now save our $0.99 on a bag of Cheetos instead. But the question is, is piracy really a bad thing? Because others call it freedom.
For example Jon Lech Johansen didn't intend to pirate, he just wanted to watch a DVD on his computer. The problem was his 1999 Linux didn't support DVD's therefore he wrote his own program. He was tried twice in court for hacking, but you can't be jailed for decrypting a DVD you paid for. The hackers just write the codes, but what the code does is give power it its users. Are having these powers all that bad?
8 comments:
Shawn Fanning started the revolution of illegal music downloading years ago. Although I have never herd of Napster, other file sharing websites like Limewire and bit torrent are very popular among average American teenagers. I find it is a good thing for people that do not want to pay more than a dollar per song, but a bad thing for the music industry. I don't really see the connection between piracy and freedom, but instead piracy and convenience.
I disagree with Miya, that the reason people pirate songs is because of convenience, because it is just as easy to go on Itunes and click the "buy" button to purchase your music. With this way it is legal. Musicians also don't make a profit from pirated music and from Itunes they do. They deserve to make a profit from their songs.
The debate over pirated music and entertainment has been going on for a while, and from what I've heard, the biggest issue is the fact that those who produce and create these products and songs aren't getting paid by the online consumers. This is as much a battle over money as anything else. Obviously, from the music industry's perspective, having the powers that come with file sharing sites is a bad thing that's basically robbing it of money and profits, and I have to agree. I don't think people should have free access to entertainment because than no one would ever make any money off of what they did or have the money to continue doing what they do. This is a business after all, and at the end of the day, someone needs to and should be paid by someone else for his or her work.
Although downloading music from the internet or burning copies of CD's is very popular nowadays, especially within the younger generation, I still think that people shouldn't get free music online or pirated ones for cheaper prices. Yes, it is in fact more convenient, but like Ryan said, the musicians don't get what they should be earning.
When I went to China, I saw many people selling pirated DVD's and CD's, even if I wanted to buy something, I couldn't even tell if it was the real disc or not. I read an article once that was saying how a famous Taiwanese artist, Jay Chou, is not making as much money as he should because as a joke, people were saying that he sold one real copy to China and the rest were all pirated. I believe that people who take the effort to produce music for the everyone should be getting what they deserve and not having pirated copies of their stuff out.
In part I think it's ok for people to go on Limewire or one of these other programs and download music for free because who wants to pay for songs, especially now that the price for the more popular songs have gone up on iTunes? I sure don't. But in part I don't think it's ok to do this because by doing this, artists are not profiting from their work that they put out there for the public. So, in my opinion, I think piracy = freedom, but then again, it does not.
I think both the consumers of these websites and the music industry are to blame. It's a given that when we download music from a source such as limewire, it's illegal and exploitation on the consumer's part. But isn't it also exploitation when programs like Itunes charge over a dollar for a song? I highly doubt it costs that much for them to distribute music. If they lowered their prices, I think more people would considering actually buying their songs instead of resorting to illegal sources.
People won't pay for a service if they can obtain it for free. Don't kid yourselves, the only reason that people actually pay for their music is because they are afraid of the problems associated with P2P software (Viruses,Spam,Etc.) Artists still make PLENTY of money from concerts, record contracts, and sponsors. Have you heard of an active artist not "paying the bills" because of music pirating? I think not. Plus it's very hard for the government to stop P2P sharing; It took over 4 years for the government to make "LimeWire" pay for damages to the music industry. Wasting money on trying to regulate it and enforce it is a waste of time and money for everyone involved, better to leave it the way it is. Once the music industry hit the internet, it is nearly impossible for them make profits on music sales. GG music industry.
I think pirating is morally wrong, because obviously it is not fair for the musician. However, like Chris said, they are definitely not hurting for money. They are plenty rich from everything else they do. How much of that 99 cents do they even get?
If they end all pirating sites, I think more will just start appearing. No one wants to pay almost a dollar per song, especially kids our age. I think it's going to be really difficult to end piracy forever, especially with the technology kids have access to.
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