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Aaron Allen Ethics in Computing Aaron Downloading MP3’s from websites and from File sharing programs has been going on for a few years now. Everyday, millions and millions of songs are transferred electronically to people’s computers for their listening pleasure. What is the harm in this? At first, there was none, but once sharing music became more popular, it started to hurt the music industry in a horrible way. Aaron A few months ago, Napster was shut down due to copyright laws. They were unlawfully allowing the downloads of songs that were not supposed to be downloaded, the law says. After the demise of Napster, many different file sharing programs sprung up in its place. Kazaa, Morpheus, and MusicCity, are a few of the most popular. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is already filing lawsuits against these companies. “’We cannot sit idly by while these services continue to operate illegally, especially at a time when new legitimate services are being launched,’ Hilary Rosen, RIAA president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.” (Pruitt) These different programs are allowing people to share music, and this is making record sales plummet. Instead of buying the album of your favorite artists, people are downloading the songs, and burning them onto blank cds. This saves the person over ten dollars a cd, and that’s a lot of money. Aaron The law says that these kinds of file sharing programs are illegal, and they should be shut down. Recently legislature passed laws to prohibit the functioning of these programs, but there is no internal server, so there is no way to shut down the file sharing unless these programs cease to exist. It was much easier to stop the use of Napster because it had a central server, a place where everyone was logged into and the IP of the user was known, so it could be banned. This is how they stopped the use of Napster. Other programs, like Kazaa, have no server. It is run by the people who have the program on your computer. It is much harder to shut down the operations this way. “In the RIAA suit, the plaintiffs said that the file-sharing networks ‘created a 21st century pirated bazaar where the unlawful exchange of protected materials takes place across the vast expanses of the Internet, and where the materials being exchanged include first-run movies currently playing in theaters and hit songs from virtually every major recording artist.’” (Pruitt) Aaron I feel that all of this is ridiculous. I have over 1300 MP3’s on my computer, and a few movies and music videos. This does not stop me from going out the record of movie store, and buying a new cd or movie at all. I like to support my favorite bands and movies, and I will gladly put up the money for a good item. I do understand where they are coming from though, since they have been losing money over the last few years. I know that’s why they are in the business, and when your company loses money, it’s never good for business. Aaron What’s best for most is also an ethical question when it comes to audio and video piracy. Having a few songs on your computer shouldn’t be breaking the law, but it also should be restricted somehow. I am not sure how, but I am sure they will find a way. They made blocks for Napster, so I am sure they can make blocks for the amounts of downloads you can have per month. Most of the file sharing programs are going to start charging monthly prices for the downloading of songs, so if you want to still download songs with ease, you can pay a few dollars a month to get them. I think this is very fair, we are stealing music from hardworking artists. We should somehow be paying for what we are receiving. Nothing in this world is free, not even MP3’s anymore. Aaron Music piracy is a very big issue in computing. This is one of the most talked about subject, along with hackers and other malicious code writers. Stealing is a very serious problem, and even downloading a few songs is stealing in the artists eyes. I understand why they get so upset over it, people should be buying their albums from the store, not getting it for free. The RIAA should lighten up a bit, I know they are on a crusade to stop copyright infringement, and it looks as though they are one their way to getting justice. Pruitt, Scarlett. (2001, October). File-Sharing Services Sued. PC World. Retrieved October 6th, 2001 from 12345 http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,64546,00.asp King, Brad. (2001, October). File Trading Sites in Crosshairs. Wired News. Retrieved October 6th, 2001 from 12345 http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,47296,00.html |