Brianna LaHara is a playful and curious 12-year-old honor student, who lives in New York with her mother and younger brother. She was brought up to always listen to her mother and diligently taught right from wrong. However, young Brianna has recently become target number one for the Recording Industry Association of America.
LaHara’s curiosity, coupled with her love of music, has landed her in front of a grand jury because she, along with millions of others, have illegally downloaded music from the internet. We all recognize stealing as a crime, so why as so many of us guilty of it?
File sharing is when people who are connected to the internet use programs to
download music, movies, video games, and other copyrighted and non-copyrighted electronic material from each other.
Back in 1999, Napster introduced the peer-to-peer network to the world and greatly popularized the concept of online music file-sharing. Soon, other sites like Kazaa, Morpheus, Gnutella, Limewire sprang up and improved upon the concept. Now, people could copy and share their music with anyone who wanted it, all for free. But economics 101 teaches us, TINSTAAFL, or, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
But who is wronged by this seemingly free transfer of data from one computer to another?
For starters, the artists who dedicate their lives to create this art are greatly hurt financially because of this. Let’s not kid ourselves, everyone who makes a stand against file sharing does not do so on ethical grounds, they do so for financial reasons.
Others who oppose file sharing argue that it is not just the artist who is hurt during the online exchange; rather, the entire economy is put at risk. These people strongly believe that this environment of free media might change people’s ideals about purchasing media legally, and if no one is buying it, then no one will want to produce it. Thus, the entire entertainment industry, not just music, could potentially become a thing of the past. This collapse in the entertainment industry would cause a massive loss of jobs and leave a huge hole in our already shaky economy.
This growing phenomenon of file sharing has created some interesting ethical debates over stealing. For some odd reason, millions of people do not truly believe this is theft. But these same people know that walking into a record store and taking CDs is stealing, so what is the difference?
The difference is the disconnect in the physicality of the action. Rather than physically walking into the record store and robbing the place blind, people can be at home and commit the crime simply with a click of their mouse.
When Napster first started, there were no policies in place or ethical guidelines for how something like this should be created and successfully and meaningfully utilized. That was until the RIAA began prosecuting people for thousands of dollars per song. This scared many people away from p2p sites and back into the realm of legal downloading, thanks to iTunes.
In my opinion the main ethical principle violated is the principle of double effect, which states, “An action that is good in itself that has two effects--an intended and otherwise not reasonably attainable good effect, and an unintended yet foreseen evil effect--is licit, provided there is a due proportion between the intended good and the permitted evil,” says Dr. Robertson, professor of philosophy at Brown University.
LaHara’s curiosity, coupled with her love of music, has landed her in front of a grand jury because she, along with millions of others, have illegally downloaded music from the internet. We all recognize stealing as a crime, so why as so many of us guilty of it?
File sharing is when people who are connected to the internet use programs to
download music, movies, video games, and other copyrighted and non-copyrighted electronic material from each other.
Back in 1999, Napster introduced the peer-to-peer network to the world and greatly popularized the concept of online music file-sharing. Soon, other sites like Kazaa, Morpheus, Gnutella, Limewire sprang up and improved upon the concept. Now, people could copy and share their music with anyone who wanted it, all for free. But economics 101 teaches us, TINSTAAFL, or, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
But who is wronged by this seemingly free transfer of data from one computer to another?
For starters, the artists who dedicate their lives to create this art are greatly hurt financially because of this. Let’s not kid ourselves, everyone who makes a stand against file sharing does not do so on ethical grounds, they do so for financial reasons.
Others who oppose file sharing argue that it is not just the artist who is hurt during the online exchange; rather, the entire economy is put at risk. These people strongly believe that this environment of free media might change people’s ideals about purchasing media legally, and if no one is buying it, then no one will want to produce it. Thus, the entire entertainment industry, not just music, could potentially become a thing of the past. This collapse in the entertainment industry would cause a massive loss of jobs and leave a huge hole in our already shaky economy.
This growing phenomenon of file sharing has created some interesting ethical debates over stealing. For some odd reason, millions of people do not truly believe this is theft. But these same people know that walking into a record store and taking CDs is stealing, so what is the difference?
The difference is the disconnect in the physicality of the action. Rather than physically walking into the record store and robbing the place blind, people can be at home and commit the crime simply with a click of their mouse.
When Napster first started, there were no policies in place or ethical guidelines for how something like this should be created and successfully and meaningfully utilized. That was until the RIAA began prosecuting people for thousands of dollars per song. This scared many people away from p2p sites and back into the realm of legal downloading, thanks to iTunes.
In my opinion the main ethical principle violated is the principle of double effect, which states, “An action that is good in itself that has two effects--an intended and otherwise not reasonably attainable good effect, and an unintended yet foreseen evil effect--is licit, provided there is a due proportion between the intended good and the permitted evil,” says Dr. Robertson, professor of philosophy at Brown University.
According to this principle, file sharing is ethically unjustifiable so if we want a world full of beautiful art, then we will have to be willing to open our wallets for it.
Travis,
ReplyDeleteGood post. I think you do need to identify yourself in such posts to give yourself more credibility. Readers should know that you are not simply some undergraduate student, but that you have studied the background literature for this topic.
A few points on grammar. I recall that you are a Media Studies major, so I know that means you haven’t taken some of our professional writing courses.
Beware of words like “always,” “never,” and “normally,” etc. Such terms often convey more generalization than is reflected in reality, and they don’t add much to the sentence. Removal doesn’t significantly change the meaning.
I would still capitalize Internet.
I think the way you wrote your post, you should hyphenate file-sharing. And you should probably improve the label to “illegal file-sharing” or “illicit file-sharing.” File-sharing is what makes your browser work, and I don’t think you’re calling or an end of the World-Wide Web.
On content. I think you tackled a very large topic, and you need some specificity to back it up. For example, if you are going to speak to the mindset of particular groups of consumers, you need some examples. Or at least, research studies that support your assertions. Also, the trends you refer to might benefit from some studies (incidentally, I believe the literature suggests that if anything, the Napster case simply drove P2P sharing further underground. I think it’s somewhat clear that P2P sharing has only expanded in the years since that case, not declined. If you have something that states otherwise, provide it. It’ll make your case stronger).
Context, context, context.
Avoid ending your post with a generalized statement that opens a new can of worms. The concept of the most effective manner of funding arts culture is a contentious area of debate. And much broader than what you had previously written. The inclusion of your closing opens up another major topic of debate, and then simply stops. You can frustrate your readers that way.
I imagine some of this criticism may seem picky, but we want as much as possible to remove textual barriers between you and your readership. In this environment, the more easily you are understood, the more likely your content is to be read.
There’s some good stuff here. And the form will become more apparent as we do more.