Technology can be empowering.
The music industry did have a point: the nature of downloadable music is not like a cassette tape or VHS, given the ease of recording and mass distribution. Its actions prosecuting individual violators in retrospect, however, were a public relations disaster and accomplished no social good. From a utilitarian standpoint and in terms of the general good, monitoring and legally sanctioning suppliers rather than focusing on the demand side of the industry seems to be the best way to ensure that file sharing is conduced in an ethical manner.
Violations will likely continue to occur, given that many nations, especially in the developing world, have a less proprietary notion of copyright than the U.S. And fans may still feel angry about having to pay money at all for music. However, artists trying to sell their work have a right to price their content as they see appropriate, and it is a consumer's right to pay or not pay for the music, not to decide that everyone...
Arguably the deficiencies in processes and technologies throughout the distribution channel enable the unethical sharing of digital property by consumers in the first place. it's as if the incompetence of these channel partners' platforms, either from a website standpoint with the support of DRM technologies or the reliance on faulty, often poorly designed DRM systems, technologies and techniques create much opportunity to take digital and intellectual property and repurpose it
There is one platform that supports the downloaders, however. Studies have indicated that downloading music for free actually helps sell music in the long run. The music industry cites fallen revenues for the last four years as evidence that illegal downloading is cutting into their profits. However, a study by two academic researchers finds that some people who download music illegally eventually purchase the music they have downloaded. A reporter
IT Ethics -- Annotated Bibliography Bowie, Norman E. (2005). Digital Rights and Wrongs: Intellectual Property in the Information Age. Business and Society Review, 110(1), 77-96. Norman Bowie takes great pains in his peer-reviewed article to point out what is legal an what is not legal when it comes to recording / taping from television and from the Internet. In fact Bowie uses an illegal issue (downloading music from the Internet) to present a moral
The ethics of free downloads has been tested in research and shows it won't stop without some threat of punishment (Taylor, 2004). One of the ways this problem can be addressed is for the government to implement laws that increase the fines for free sharing while providing benefits by way of reduced taxes to companies that offer downloading for a reasonable cost. Paying the artists a portion of each sale is
How the Internet has Transformed the Economics and Value of Music Introduction Digital technology has transformed the way people all over the world consume music. The Digital Age has also impacted the way musicians, artists and producers benefit from making music. Prior to digitalization, music had to either be consumed live and in-person or through the purchase of a hard copy (disc, cassette tape, record, etc.). Now that music files can be
Copyright Infringement & the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 This paper looks into the issues of copyright infringement and circumvention of technology with reference to Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. The author of this paper has carefully studied the law in question and has focused on various issues connected with this legislation. DMCA is a highly controversial law that has been staunchly opposed and actively supported by different
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