Piracy....

Piracy has had a big effect on the new media online. So many people are downloading songs online for free and they have no idea as to where the songs are coming from, who they are coming from, and the dangers that they could possibly have on our computers and the viruses it could possibly have. Many people, especially the generation that has grown up with the internet and never heard of dial up or bulletin boards, get the idea in their heads that downloading software; music or movies off the internet is one of its purposes. They basically subscribe to the notion that if it is available online, they have every right own it, or if they right click and save, it must be free of charge right? Well for most things it is, of course, but the majority of content found on the internet, whether it is pictures, music, movies, etc is copyrighted, therefore that notion does not really apply in this situation.

Downloading costs record companies a lot of money each year but the question is what should we do about it and can we stop it? Mason says, "if either decide to compete with pirates by moving into the new market space, they can also cut into the market share of the competitor." (236) Apple created iTunes in a way to compete with piracy and move that into the new market space. It is now one of the most popular music/movies/games downloading sites on the World Wide Web.

To be completely honest, I download music online for free and I watch movies and TV online all the time. Every night after class and I am done my homework, I sit in my room and decide to watch a couple of episodes of a funny TV show or a movie. It's free, I do not have to go to the video store to watch it and...did I mention it's free? I mean...of course piracy has its advantages. We can get any kind of music or movies that we want online whenever, wherever we want for no amount of money. Zilch! Zippo! However, we are still taking media forms that do not belong to us and people are not even aware of the fact that we are stealing it. Because it is out there for the whole world to see and use for their own personal use, we take advantage of that and do not think anything of it until our computer crashes down because of a virus the media form we took. Like I said, we never know where or who the information we are downloading is coming from. All we want is the music we listen to and a good movie to entertain us and apparently, that seems to be all that matters nowadays. Personal use and entertainment...