Copyright – good or bad?
File sharing. One of the most used word during the previous ten years. Since the development of Internet it has been possible to download material from all over the world, with no such limits. It sounds great, but of course there are moral dilemmas – the creator of the material should have some kind of compensation for the use of his or hers work. If people use it for free without paying they lose a big income of salary.
Thats why there is laws, like copyright, that forbid us to take whatever we want from the net.
Thankfully all file sharers don’t think the same. Many people think that if they get the chance to TRY the product for free, they might like it and buy it for later. You can’t expect everyone to think like that, but if you really are a fan of some kind of music or a film you might want to collect the samples for real.
The amount of people downloading files today is huge. That means it’s hard to frame persons individually for breaking against the copyright laws. If the police catch one illeagel file sharer he is just one of thousands doing it, and it would be really unfair in many means. I sometimes get the feeling that the police thinks it’s useless to chase downloaders, and I can understand them.
I think that copyright is an out-dying law. When Internet came into the picture and gave access to all kind of digital material it was also the beginning of the end for a world with a finansial consumable entertainment industry.
There are products like Spotify, that tries to find legal options that wont threat the laws. They stream music so the users can listen to it but not owning it. I think that’s the only hope copyright have left.
The main idea of copyright is good. It’s intentions are noble. But like many other laws it gets obsolated and doesn’t catch up with the modern worlds new values and directives. If they want to reclaim the privileges of copyright they will have to forbid Internet. And that would be impossible.
What was that about injustice when suing one out of thousands for downloading illegal material? Without getting paid for all work, new movies, software and music cannot exist. A budget for an average Hollywood movie might be several million dollars, so these money will have to return to the investors if we want to see any new high quality movies instead of all independent dittos. In basic my sympathies are on the copyright industry, even if they are awkwardly conservative when it comes to new media.
I agree with you, it’s hard to find everyone who’s guilty and as you say, as long as internet excist, filesharing probably will do to, and forbid internet is not really an opption. I believe that Spotify is the solution to the copyright law, in one way or another:)