I think it is safe to say that almost everyone in our
generation has participated in some sort of illegal file sharing, whether it
was downloading music or watching movies. The Internet makes it so easy for us
to find free versions of almost anything we want, making file sharing seem
completely acceptable. I remember hearing about the Napster case, when I was
much younger, and being amazed by the fact that someone figured out how to
share so many songs for free on the Internet. I remember giving my father a
list of songs that I really wanted, and he would download a few of them every
so often before Napster was shut down. Suddenly when the lawsuit arose, my
father told me that he would not be downloading any more music. He told me that
it was illegal and that he could get in a lot of trouble if he continued to do
it. However by that time, I had already had a taste of free music and did not
want to give it up. I expressed my frustration to my father and he explained
the problem with free music sharing online: it is illegal because it is an
example of copyright infringement and is robbing the artists of the money they
deserve. After realizing that file sharing is actually stealing, I stopped
supporting it, as I did not want to hurt the artists or filmmakers that I was a
fan of.
That
is why last month, when the whole SOPA ordeal was going on, I had very mixed
feelings. If you are like me, and tend not to look at the news, you probably
learned about SOPA by seeing many of your favorite websites participate in a
blackout strike. Some involved parties completely blacked out their sites,
temporarily halting functionality, whereas other simply displayed a banner
stating that they were protesting SOPA. I’m sure that everyone had at least a
few of their friends change their Facebook pictures to the one below as a form
of protest. I personally noticed the absence of Wikipedia, which was completely
shut down temporarily as a protest. However when I saw a black banner across
the top of Google’s homepage, covering the usual logo, I panicked. What is SOPA
even going to do? I immediately started doing research on SOPA and was a little
surprised by what I found.
SOPA,
which stands for Stop Online Piracy Act, is a bill that Congress tried to pass
last month to stop the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials online. One of the biggest struggles with stopping online copyright infringement is the huge group of illegal file sharing websites based in foreign countries. Since these websites are not based in America, we do not really have the power to shut them down. Essentially what this bill would do is allow the government to shut down any website that is enabling illegal file sharing or even just providing some sort of way for a user to locate illegal file sharing. This makes sense until you really think about it: any website with user-generated content could fit into this category! If a man in China posts a link to his illegal website on Facebook, Facebook could be shut down. If someone uploads any part of a copyrighted video to YouTube, it could be shut down too. I'm not going to get into too much detail here because I think the video below explains the concept of SOPA in the most concise manner possible. If you want to view the actual SOPA bill, click the link below the video.
After the Internet blackout strike took place, Congress
decided to step down and re-think its plan to enact SOPA. I think this was a great decision because SOPA would have unfairly shut down innocent sites just because some user posted something illegal. Enacting SOPA would literally destroy the user-generated content that the web has been rapidly expanding around for the past decade.
However this was not
the end of the battle against online copyright infringement through file
sharing websites. On January 5, federal authorities arrested four people and
took 18 domain names and $50 in assets. Around the same time that everything
was happening with SOPA, the US government decided to shut down Megaupload.com.
Megaupload is one of the largest file sharing sites in the world, based in Hong
Kong. It is estimated that the site has robbed copyright holders of about $500
million by sharing their content illegally, while those running the site were
earning incomes of about $175 million.
The first thought that came to mind upon hearing about this was, "why can the U.S. government shut down a website based in Hong Kong?" I wondered
what the point of SOPA even was if this could already be done in the first
place. I did some research and discovered that the reason the U.S. was able to
shut down Megaupload is because it was operating under a .com domain name,
meaning that it is an American domain. The company also had servers located in
Virginia and Washington D.C.
It seems to me that Megaupload will fight these charges
since only its domain name and two servers are U.S. based. Since the company
itself was actually based in Hong Kong I think that it may have a case. If you have never heard of Megaupload, or even if you have, you may want to check out the company's theme song below.
As you can probably see from watching the video above, Megaupload was a huge company with a big reputation. It actually sought out celebrities whose content was featured heavily on its database and offered them money to say that they support Megaupload. This gave some Megaupload users the idea that celebrities were okay with their intellectual property being shared online for free, which is hugely untrue.
In actuality, to producers of this illegally shared content are struggling to put food on the table. Websites like Megaupload have literally destroyed the job market in the film industry. As soon as a movie is released, it can be found all over the Internet because people illegally share this content online. What is even worse is that the websites that host these pirated movies are actually profiting! They do this by running advertisements on their websites so that every time someone watches a film on their site they are making money. Watch the video below to gain a better understanding of how much illegal file sharing is actually hurting these content producers.
Personally, I can understand both viewpoints on this subject. Online file sharing is cheap, easy, and convenient. Why would I want to pay a dollar for a song when I could just find it for free on a number of different websites? The fact that our generation has grown up in an era where we are able to find almost anything we want online for free is what is really stopping more people from standing up to the issue. However I think that the video above really highlights the problem that illegal file sharing is causing. People are being robbed of millions of dollars! These people are working hard to produce this content that people are consuming, and people are taking it for free and literally robbing them of their income. Imagine walking into the kitchen of a small, family owned restaurant and stealing a bunch of prepared meals. It seems wrong right? Now imagine watching a movie online for free using a file sharing site. Doesn't seem so bad anymore does it? Regardless of the way society views file sharing, it is the same thing - it is stealing.
One thing that I have noticed is that some musical artists understand that mp3s have almost no monetary value on the Internet anymore and have started giving away their music for free. Pretty Lights Music label, for instance, gives the music of all of its artists away for free on its website. Every time someone downloads an album, the site gives them an opportunity to make a donation. Although most people probably do not donate, the artists know that there are some true fans that would be willing to spare some money to keep the music coming. These artists depend on revenue from concerts and merchandise sales to make a profit. Believe it or not, they are highly successful. I think that illegal file sharing is a huge problem that needs to be eliminated, but the solution is complicated. However, in the mean time I think that content producers should begin to take a more realistic approach to their income strategies so that they will stop losing so much money due to pirated content. Please check out the Pretty Lights website below.
Thanks for reading my blog! Please feel free to check out the sources I used below:
Ars Technica
I learned about the first and third videos through my Government & Media class.
I learned about the second video through my International Marketing class.
I learned about the first and third videos through my Government & Media class.
I learned about the second video through my International Marketing class.
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