Illegal Transfer Of Music example essay topic

At the dawn of the internet, many things such as books and text became obsolete, due to insufficient monitoring of internet activity and sites. Individuals were able to gain free access to books and publications that normally needed to be bought, or required a fee. This is something that has caused problems for booksellers and publishers. Now, as technology advances, it also begins the decline of music, software, and television industries-but something can be done before it's too late. Illegal downloading is a problem that affects us all, either directly or indirectly. Many people do not take it too seriously.

They have not realized that it is an epidemic; like a disease that keeps growing as people become more knowledgeable about computers and learn more about how software runs. People openly burn music CDs and download music and movies for friends who in turn give it to their friends; it's a never-ending cycle on illegal practices. The problem started when Napster came out and should have ended when it was shutdown. Unfortunately, not enough has been done to stop the illegal transfer of files. It's time someone takes full action and ends this detrimental offense. Napster is a company that developed the so-called peer-to-peer technology that lets people search and retrieve music files directly from one another's personal computers.

When Napster first came out, millions of internet users worldwide were illegally downloading and distributing copyrighted music, videos, images, and software for free. After being vilified by the entertainment industry, which claims that Napster and any similar programs could make piracy of almost any digital work unstoppable, and many court battles, Napster was ordered by court to be shutdown in 2000. The technology has been praised as a revolutionary development for the Internet-unaware of the problems that would arise from such practices. However, the termination of Napster was not enough, months later, dozens of new, like programs were being developed and used. And since Napster, not much has been done to stop these latest downloading programs. Although there was a period where the Recording Industry Association of America (the RIAA), an organization that investigates the illegal production and distribution of sound recordings, went after a few users, including a twelve year old girl, with fines of up to $250,000-users still continue to download.

With an average of 2.54 million users per day web), people still share files because they know that there is not a big enough chance they will be caught by the RIAA. People need to be aware that what they are doing is wrong and is just like walking into a store and stealing it off a store shelf. It's not only the music industry that's being affected, this "epidemic" also spreads into the movie industry, which spends millions to entertain us, computer software companies, the ones that make the programs that we use at home and work and make our lives easier. Even publishers of books and magazines are being affected. People take magazines and books and scan every page of it on to their computer as a picture image and distribute it freely. Since people now have the option to download music, movies, or software for free online, they will not buy the retail products anymore, therefore driving the profits and income down for companies selling these products.

If all of this keeps up, America and the rest of the world will soon lose many of the companies that provide them with essential programs, entertainment, music, books, and magazines. If the music industry is not successful in stopping the illegal transfer of music, then they will start compensating for their loses by raising the price of the music for commercial users. This includes music that is in movies, video games, radio, or used on TV. If their prices are raised to use song in a movie or TV show, theaters and cable providers will most likely compensate for the increased cost by raising their prices. Movie tickets could soon become 15 dollars, video games could cost 5 dollars more, and cable or satellite TV could cost more.

Everyone needs to take a part in solving the problem. The government needs to take more action. Right now, they aren't doing anything to solve this epidemic. All they do is talk and keep postponing bills that are controversial, because it infringes on the freedom of the internet.

They can't make up their minds. One solution is that that the government can completely control the web by controlling the internet service providers. These include AOL, MSN, and SBC. These companies need more responsibility by monitoring what programs are illegally transferring files through their customer's internet connection. Companies now must create their own team of internet police to watch for pirating.

In some other countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia this is done, and everything going in and out of the country is filtered. They limit access to thousands of websites. The government could also do things such as making Peer-to-Peer programs illegal, or make it so users must have a license to operate that software. This may seem a little extreme, but if that's what it takes to solve the problem, and help the economy, we may have to resort to it.

The government could also create a new division of the FBI or an investigative field like it where their main objective would be to monitor and stop the illegal transfer of files over the internet. Not only could this new "Internet Police" stop piracy, but can even end in the rising problems of online contents such as child pornography and pedophiles targeting young internet users. They would watch what is being transferred over the Peer to Peer programs and search the internet for websites that freely give out software or movies, and would shut them down. This new division would also find sites that condone pirated material and support it by giving people links to other sites or programs where you can get pirated movies and software. If not, a bill that makes illegal downloaders criminally liable for copyright infringement would help tremendously. This way, everyone that downloads software illegally is liable, not just the few that the music or industry decides to sue.

Another solution would be for Microsoft, Mac or any other companies that create operating systems to implement software into their operating systems that would not allow people to transfer files so easily, or a program that would watch what files were being sent, so it could catch the illegal transferring of files. As for companies, such as Dell, Hewlett Packard, Sony, Macintosh and others that make computer motherboards could implement a chip into the motherboards to scan and analyze people's online activities. The motherboard is the main system component of computers and all the hardware such as hard drives, video cards, sounds cards and anything else that you connect to your computer must be run through the mother board. So essentially all your activities could be monitored-especially the transfer of large files, such as songs and movies.

As explained above, illegal downloading is a great problem affecting the entertainment industry and could soon be an even bigger problem for consumers. Downloading copyrighted material illegally is just as unlawful as stealing from a store or someone's personal item. To prevent shutting down businesses and industries, internet pirates must be stopped and actively sought after. So if one is downloading material illegally take in to mind what harm it can do to and who is being hurt in the process. Free does not mean that it's moral or fine; one must analyze and see the consequences of such actions before they continue-otherwise, it could be the end of something great because people were stealing and driving companies out of business, with no force stopping them..