Piracy

In today’s age, the Internet provides people with an abundance of information and unlimited access to media. As a result, copyrighted content faces the threat of piracy and infringement. The unauthorized copying and distribution of media such as music and movies has skyrocketed over the past few years resulting in a severe loss of revenue for this industry. Internet piracy is convenient and easy for the person doing the pirating, but is it right? No, internet piracy, although convenient, is still a form of stealing which makes it morally and legally wrong. With the Internet at our fingertips and endless media available, this begs the question when does downloading become illegal? The answer to this is simple; downloading of media becomes illegal when the rights of the artist have been infringed upon, when copyright protection laws have been violated, and when media is knowingly being distributed inappropriately. Piracy is defined as the use of the internet to illegally copy and/or distribute software (yourdictionary, 2013). The act of piracy deprives the original artists and creators of the incentives associated with their work. For example, rather than going to a store and purchasing music legally, there are many file sharing sites and software sites that allow people to download the song they want for free. As a result, the record company and the musician miss out on the revenue associated with that song. While this may not seem like a big deal, this has actually resulted in the loss of millions and in some cases billions of dollars. Once again, this may not seem like a big deal, after all we are talking about celebrities who are making more money than most people can even dream about. However, these people have put in the time, effort, and commitment into creating this media and it is morally and ethically wrong to take their profits from them. By downloading media for free, people are essentially stealing from the original creator and artist and