Personally, I believe this takes away much of the appeal of the internet. Slowly more and more sites will go down. No longer is everything within a click of the mouse. I suppose we should have seen this coming; there were signs. Within the past year, YouTube, a popular video sharing site, has also cracked down on copy right laws with many videos being taken down due to improper crediting of music, video clips, etc. Perhaps they foresaw this occurring. What's going to happen to Limewire? Torrent? What are we going to do now guys?
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Bye Bye to Mega Upload
The beloved MegaUpload, a popular file-sharing site, has been taken down as the Department of Justice attempts to curve the amount of piracy that goes on as well as put a stop to the not-so-hidden copyright infringements that go on within the internet. MegaUpload is just the beginning of the shutdowns to occur. Thus far, there have been 4 arrests, 18 domain seizures as well as a recovery of $50 million dollars worth of assets. Out of the 7 MegaUpload operators, 3 are still being searched for as well as speculation that popular rapper Swizz Beatz is the CEO of MegaUpload.
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6 comments:
In terms of "seeing this coming," I think Crystal definitely has a point; it's something that's also reflected in the recent discussion and protest surrounding SOPA and PIPA.
Enforcing copyright and combating piracy, while justifiable and perhaps even the more lawful course of action, just don't seem to be the most critical issues to our generation. The youth of today, as part of the technology generation, has a different view of the matter than do the past-middle-age legislators actually handling these issues.
This is just another of the many things that the framers had no way of foreseeing, and I think it will be interesting to see how the "constitutionality" of "legislating the internet" plays out.
I feel like the lengths a copyright go too can be interpreted differently. Although blatantly stealing videos and putting them on a site is outright a violation, there are instances where pictures and videos used by politicians are not credited to the original composer/owner and this would also be a violation of the copyright laws. How is it constitutional that the federal government is trying to regulate something so global as the internet? It's not even a question of states rights anymore.
Limewire was taken down many months ago. As an artist, and as one who soon hopes to be releasing music, I share my art in hopes or approval and compensation. I don't think it's right for people to get hold of my material after I release it without my permission. I don't think it's right to steal. Obviously I care about people stealing my music - due to my own work and love for it and need for money etc. - before I become concerned that they're stealing from a record label, as well, but whether they're stealing from me, Capital Records, or David Byrne, stealing just doesn't rub right with me. HOWEVER, on the other hand, I understand the appeal of unauthorized downloading. I mean, an endless supply of music, movies, etc. for the small fee of the push of a button and some room on your hard drive, you're practically being asked to download and pirate things. I'm not going to lie, I've downloaded a lot of music in my day, but overall, I just felt dirty and like I was screwing over artists I truly respect. Sure, with prices on the rise, I certainly haven't always agreed with the compensation artists were asking for, but I think they deserve compensation nonetheless. Are there conditions where it'd be right to steal? I guess? But that's subjective. What if you see a movie on TV where you can tape it and have it forever. Does that make it okay to download it? I'm not sure. Same goes with hearing things on the radio and recording it. Does that make it wrong to burn a CD and give it away? It all comes down to a persons morality and ethics. Is it right for the government to censor and decide for us what's morally right? I don't think so. I think people should act according to what they think is just and artists should release their stuff in the world in hope that loyal enough fans will compensate and people respect their art, but release things with caution and awareness of the goings on. I can see how file sharing websites limits goes against privacy and whatnot and is stealing, but stifling the cites, should that be considered as a road block for free speech? I guess enough artists and labels have gotten fed up enough. I can easily see both sides. So, to sum it up, I don't think stealing is right, but this is all subjective. People should follow their morals more and give more respect and compensation to artists, but the government shouldn't sort of decide for people what is morally just.
It is aganist the law to steal something without copyright. I think the government is relizing how big a problem this is with many websites that are dedicated just to copyrighted videos. I personally think is a problem mostly for the reason that the people that make the videos or music lose money. I think taking down the websites is fine but SOPA and PIPA are too far because it limits the freedom of the internet.
I think I used megaupload like once to watch a movie and the quality was horrible so I don't think it's a big deal that they took it down. But if they end up taking down all the music download sites then people will probably freak out because 80% of the music in most people's iTunes libraries was pirated from those sites. A lot of kids today just wait for those sites to post whole albums for free download instead of saving up 20$ to go to the closest music store and buy the actual album. Plus, most of the pirated albums have remixes and acoustic tracks that you can't find on itunes so that's probably why so many people do it. But as soon as they took down limewire, people found other websites to get their music from and if those get taken down i'm sure someone will make another website that does the same thing.
This is just the beginning, in a sense, like Crystal. This just shows that it is possible for sites that are considered "violations of copyright to be taken down by higher authorities. Although, I can see where they are going with this. Before the internet, buying the album was the only way to be able to listen to the artist's songs. Now, one does not need to go the store and pick up a CD. All they have to do is go online, find the song they want, and download it. This lowers the number of CDs bought in a given amount of time, which negatively affect the company that manufactures them because they are not selling as many CDs as before. However, if the Department of Justice takes down more sites, then that would also affect the artists negatively because now the Internet is used to spread the music. Specifically with Youtube, if videos with music are taken down, that means that song will not be spread as much, meaning the artist will not get as much recognition. There is a risk for both sides.
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