The conservative government has been trying to implement a method to put an end to illegal downloading. The Conservatives unveiled new changes to the copyright act where if anyone is caught infringing the law, they can be fined $500 to $20,000 depending on the severity of the act. What this means is that a consumer could copy the music that they purchased onto their mp3 players, but they are not allowed to copy music that they have rented and/or borrowed. Now will this change in the copyright act actually help control the outbreak of illegal downloading? Will people still illegally download? Should downloading be legal?
I believe that although illegal downloading is easier for us and has less cost than actually going to a store and buying a $20 CD, it is still considered to be theft. No one actually believes that but in a way it is. You may not be going into a store and taking the CD, but you are taking music off the web that well you are not paying for and is not yours. Music industries do make money off people that buy their music but if people are not buying their music anymore then they will be losing money. But don't get me wrong, I am not for buying $20 CDs, but there are alternatives now to that. Itunes and other websites are actually suggesting that you can buy music off their sites for 99 cents. Now I believe that since the new copyright act has been implemented these alternatives are definitely better than buying a $20 CD.
Please feel free to state your thoughts!
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/442126
3 comments:
I'm curious as to how illegal downloaders would be caught. I mean, every single person that I know illegal downloads or has illegally downloaded at some point in time. Does the government just trace IPs to find the people that are illegally downloading? Also, if they do, then what about the people who have modems that have their IP addresses reset every few minutes? How would you catch them?
The people that would get caught would not necessarily be the people that are downloading but the ones that are uploading the files. I believe it is easier to locate people that upload files than those that download them. Although I am not 100% sure how the government will catch every single person.
Also compared to actual theft, when people do steal, whether it be off the web or at an actual store, not everyone does get caught. But some people still do. There are consequences to stealing and that is why eventually more people will be scared to upload files. If there were not consequences then everyone would walk into a BMW store and steal a car!
I try to keep on top of the news (for the sake of this blogging project), but I have not come across this. It was definitely something interesting to take a look at. There is no way of actually 'catching' people. Everyone can and probably will get away with accessing free music. There are websites available now where you can copy and paste the link to your favourite YouTube video and it will change the format so you can listen to the audio on your iPod. I am sure the fines are a good idea, and will probably 'scare' some people from doing the 'illegal' thing, but there are always available ways around the system, and there is no keeping track of who is doing what. But I suppose $0.99 songs are better than $500+ fines. I am interested in seeing what will come out of all of this.
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