What was the reaction to Online Pirates?
The term online pirates makes one imagine Pirates of the Caribbean sailing the online web offering black market downloads. So who are these tough online pirates? Well look around you- it’s probably someone even only feet away.
According to a poll by Christian Student Monitor, in 2006, two thirds of college students reported that their music was downloaded illegally. (Mcgovern) It doesn’t just stop at college students. A large amount of the world illegally downloads music, books videos- everything. There is no specific market of people that are considered “pirates”.
Since there is such a large amount of “pirates”, the government over the past few years has been implementing a heavy crackdown on illegal downloading. Unfortunately , the more regulation the smarter the “pirates” are becoming. According to the New York Times,
“The way people download unauthorized content is changing. In the early days of music piracy, people transferred songs to their home or work computers. Now, with cloud-based sites, like Wuala, uTorrent and Tribler, people stream movies and music from third-party storage facilities, often to mobile devices and TV’s.” (Bilton)
This is just creating an easier environment for more people to join the ranks of online piracy and avoid getting caught. So does this mean that the world should cave in and find a way to market the online downloading for profit- is this the new trend and the new world?
Surprisingly the numbers are reducing, partly due to free legal downloading. According to CNET, “ the number of illegally downloaded songs from P2P services dropped by 26 percent in 2012 from 2011.” (Whitney) There are people in the online world that are weighing the costs and looking for easier and more legal alternatives.
So who are online pirates? That is a tough question. We feel comfortable saying that probably anyone who has access to the world wide web potentially illegally downloaded at some point in their life and future generations will too. So there are no Jack Sparrow type pirates in the online world- just your normal everyday civilians saving a few bucks.
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Given the savvy technological advances this country and the world have seen over the past several years, it is difficult to believe that we don't have a better handle on the problem of online piracy. It is just too easy to take something that you didn't create and rob, say, a musician of his due compensation.
ReplyDeleteI feel certain that for a period of time, many people didn't realize that downloading a song from the Internet was illegal, but with all the discussion in the news these days about online piracy, there is no excuse to claim ignorance in 2013.
Downloading music and movies is so readily available now most people see it as a normal thing to do and do not even think twice. People downloading free music off the internet has been very popular for a while now with sites like Frostwire or Limewire being so easy to access. Now that cloud sharing has come into play it seems illegal downloading has become even easier and wide spread among people. Streaming movies for free off the internet have also started to be on the rise.With the use of uTorrent you can see movies that are still in theaters on your computer. I do not see illegal downloads for music or movies among people going down anytime soon and they will probably be staying around for years to come.
ReplyDeleteI will admit that I am guilty of downloading music files from some of the sources listed in these comments. Though not listed, my favorite torrent site was demonoid. They had to change their domain from .com to .me, etc. a few times to keep operating. They were finally shut down completely. I now find it much harder to find some of the things I want on other torrent sites. R.I.P. Demonoid. - Joshua Ishman
ReplyDeleteI agree with the first comment. We are a pretty tech savvy country. Online piracy is huge and many people including myself probably didn't realize that it was illegal at first. I know for a long time I used programs like Bearshare, limewire and frostwire to get music. It isn't fair to the artists that are due the compensation though and many don't think about that. Honestly, I don't see this being a quick fix.
ReplyDeleteThese comments are all valid. I did find it interesting that it has actually gone down due to legal free downloads. I think that is an interesting angle to cut back on illegal downloading and actually can have a business purpose- there are other ways to make money on music so I do this being a tactic that might grow.
ReplyDeleteSo with SOPA and PIPA out of the picture, what is illegal to download? what programs are considered illegal to use? I do not want to be afraid to download anything where I have to compromise and limit the use of my internet downloads.
ReplyDelete