Music File Sharing and Should It Be Legal Essay Example For Students

Music File Sharing and Should It Be Legal Essay Should Music-sharing Programs be outlawed in the United States? Research Question: Should music-sharing programs be outlawed in the United States? The reason I chose to research the topic dealing with illegal music-sharing and the websites that facilitates this was because I think that we are ALL guilty of this at one time or another in our lives. How far do we need to go in order to police files sharing online, specifically music files? I hope to be able formulate an answer to these questions in my research. I personally wanted to look into this query because as a Caucasian I find myself hearing more and more free music on the internet every day. I started to wonder if as artists we are starting to slowly let our guard down and relinquish our music to the people that want to hear it without legal repercussions. Music file sharing seems like it has become the norm amongst any avid internet user, I will also take a look at what programs are preferred and what others are doing to fight the people sharing the music. Boolean Operators: The Boolean Operators that I used originally was AND as well as + in between the two words music and sharing. After using the above Boolean operators I had enough search results populate that I was able to print out the resources and use them towards my research. If there were not as many results as there were, I would have put the entire search in quotation marks. Annotated Bibliography: Illegal File Sharing Threatens the Future of the Music Industry. What Is the Future of the Music Industry? De. Roman Espies. Detroit: Greengages Press, 2009. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Gale. Web. 12 May 2011. This source was essential in my paper by providing me with insight into what the actual spirit and letter of the away contains. Through reading this article I was able to briefly explain what the penalty is and what level crime piracy holds. It was also effective is explaining that there are different laws for piracy for piracy of music and piracy of images/recorded images. Overall an informative article. Humphreys, Stephen. Spottily: A new bounty of free music. The Christian Science Monitor. 20 August 2009. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Gale. Web. 12 May 2011. This source was somewhat informative but after reading it through I realized that it would have been more insightful if they also talked about other software innovations Music File Sharing and Should It Be Legal By bedroom my paper by sighting the fact that companies are using technology to fight technology. Overall the article was moderate at best. Hunt, Ken. File-sharing Copyrighted Media Helps to Advance Technology. Globe and Mail. 27 Novo. 2007. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Gale. Web. 12 May 2011. In this source Hunt really does a fantastic Job in taking the devils advocate position on the whole topic. There is argument that piracy can do good in society in the sense that the art gets out to more of the people and therefore cultures them. He also goes onto explain that companies like Google and Microsoft have used software pirates to gain their position on the global map. This source I would say was the one that I agreed with the most and found the most merit in. Tansy, Barnett. New tactic fights file sharing. San Francisco Chronicle. 20 DCE. 2008. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Gale. Web. 12 May 2011. I appreciate this source for a couple reasons. First off, Tansy explains how the ARIA will be searching our new and intuitive ways to crack down on piracy. Though keeping with their standard courtroom approach they will also be working with Internet providers to find users who are pirating and file sharing. Secondly, it explained how the ARIA knows that it cant stop everyone from file sharing but it encourages people to use alternatives to piracy, I. E. Tunes or any other music distributors. It goes to show that they are legitimately try to give money back to the music industry, artists and labels. As an artist I can appreciate that. Outsell, Ivory. If piracy is wrong, why does it feel so right? Globe ; Mail. 16 May 2009. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Gale. Web. 12 May 2011. Akai MPC2000 MIDI Production Center EssayThe same thing happened with the application Greenshank. They offered a monthly rate to stream any song you wanted but Apple soon discontinued the application. So how else can they battle file sharing? The Recording Industry Association of America (ARIA) says that theyll be reducing their courtroom fights but instead start to deal with Internet providers. Those companies who have found themselves in the middle of the music-sharing wars because they have been forced by subpoena to disclose the names of customers whose computers were used to swap songs online (Tansy). There is a lot of red tape when it comes to terms of service by and internet provider and to try to enforce an internet band on someone who has been accused of file sharing seems far to harsh in my opinion. So I see this as even a logistical nightmare when it comes to cracking down on piracy. Fines and imprisonment seem to only cost taxpayers more money in a society where our economy is crippled and we are at war. If music sharing is so wrong then why do we find ourselves burning Cads from friends of emailing songs to one another? I honestly believe that everyone I know at one time has shared a file illegally. Will there ever be a time in America where we will adhere to the protocol of file sharing? Copyright has always been a study in contradictions. Western culture has long been at odds as to whether works of art along solely to their creators or also to a nation or to humanity (Outsell). People expect music to be readily available in the most expedient way possible. So Americans have adopted a Free Culture (Outsell) movement, where if we find things to be too expensive or not handy enough, then we find our way to circumvent the problem and attain the media with any means necessary. There have been more good thing. If it was up to the major record labels there wouldnt be MPH players; there wouldnt be online It seems as though in the past and in the history of any new technological innovation that the hegemony has deemed it to be pirate technology (Hunt). What does the future hold for music file sharing? Its hard to say be if there continues to be no real threat of getting caught then peo ple will continue to share without regard. Just as they would driving MPH over the speed limit or making illegal U-turns, sure there is a risk but it is a risk they we all choose to take and with a satisfying reward.