Travis DeSimone
The Corsair
Most of us rely on the Internet to obtain our media in the modern day and age. Whether it is watching our favorite music video on You Tube, downloading an album from the iTunes store, or streaming a movie with Netflix, the Internet has become an invaluable source of entertainment. However, not everyone obtains their entertainment legally. Piracy is nothing new; chances are you (beloved reader) have committed an act of piracy, even if it was inadvertent. Have you ever downloaded an mp3 through a file sharing site, or even recorded a movie from television with your VCR? These are in fact forms of piracy. But what is really at stake here?
Through the use of peer to peer programs, piracy has hit an all time high. Files are hosted by various people in a network of computers around the world and anyone may download these files using a piece of software known as a torrent client. This has forced record labels, film studios, and publishing companies to reinvent the way they distribute their products. Micro transactions have become quite popular with the big wigs of the industry: charging .99 cents for an mp3, ten dollars for unlimited streaming movies, or a single low price so you can read your favorite novel on your E-reader.
The giants of the entertainment industry may even be more profitable now than ever. Who really wants to drive all the way to the record store and shell out twenty dollars for a CD that may become damaged, when you can download the album from iTunes for ten dollars? It is clearly more economical.
Some artists claim piracy hurts them; others believe it to be a better way to sell their brand. I’m sure we all remember the Napster fiasco in 2000, in which heavy metal band Metallica filed a class action lawsuit against Napster for hosting audio files of the band’s songs on their servers. Other irate artists followed suit, including Dr. Dre, and Madonna. This led to Napster going bankrupt, their shares being liquidated, and the company disbanding. They have recently returned to the net, joining music provider Rhapsody, distributing licenced mp3s for a nominal fee. Although Napster has returned, this does not help Metallica’s public Image. Many of their most devoted fans still look at them with scorn for the way they reacted to people sharing their music.
On the other side of things, we have bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails releasing albums online with a “pay what you would like” model: Download our album for free, and if you like it support us. This is a breath of fresh air in the corporate music industry. Many proponents of digital downloading say that this has an extremely positive effect for the artists, increasing exposure, and boosting their public image. This model suggests that they are artists producing work for the sake of art, not just a content factory trying to sell a record.
However, this change in distribution does not end piracy; the United States Government is starting to take this very seriously. The Stop Online Piracy Act was brought before the House of Representatives by Texan republican Lamar Smith on October 26th 2011. This bill was introduced to give our administrators more power in controlling what is hosted on the Internet. Supporters of the bill say it will protect jobs and protects intellectual property, while opponents say that it will destroy the Internet as we know it and endanger free speech.
This bill would stop advertisers and service providers like Paypal from conducting business with barred sites. Search engines would be censored from showing offending material, and the United States Government would be able to effectively tell us which websites we couldn’t visit (much like the heavily censored Internet of Iran or China). A karaoke video on YouTube would land you a felony charge if you streamed it on an open network. While people should benefit from their work, this is a step too far.
Is the fight against piracy worth destroying net neutrality? Who is really being hurt here? Whether you believe in piracy or not these are important questions. Most of us live in a digital world, and if this bill passes it will be a major game changer. As the way we obtain our media evolves so do the policies surrounding its distribution. In a recent study from BI Norwegian School of Management, pirates were found to be 10 times more likely to buy the product they have downloaded than the average consumer. Despite this interesting fact, the state of the Internet as we know it has come under fire.