The Law of Copyright plays a major role in our everyday lives, where it is considered a major controversial issue in today’s society. Some people also believe that this law has gone way beyond the limit, where people are being fined for no good reason at all or for something that shouldn’t be that big. Copyright infringements on Youtube and other peer to peer file sharing methods such as Kazaa and Napstar takes away people’s freedom of speech and choice and also a lot of their rights.
Copyright, in many senses, has benefits, where this protects people’s exclusive rights and prevents theft or copying of their own product without any credit. Copyright infringements occur when people steal or copy one’s work, claiming it as their own, and don’t give the producer credit for this. I do positively think that copyrighting and theft is wrong, to a certain extent. But I also feel that this law has gone way beyond the limit and too far. For example, when watching a movie, I’m sure all of you have come across this warning right before the beginning of the movie:
What do you feel when you read this warning? Do you think that the law is being too harsh on you. Being subjected to a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of $250 000, do you think this is way too much; especially, for only copying movies and selling it to some consumers, sometimes even free of charge? I think selling these copies should be okay to a certain extent, especially before this movie legally comes out on video and DVD, but shouldn’t go too out of hand. The government should also realize that not everyone prefers pirated copies to the real copies, and most people would prefer to buy the real copies. Also, some of the consumers who buy the pirated copies may buy the real copy when it comes out, since they prefer the quality and clarity of this copy more than the pirated ones. Also, some people may really want to watch a movie, but can’t even afford to buy the real copies of movies or go to a theater to watch them. What can they do now? Have you ever heard the phrase “Downloading Pirated Copies is Stealing” Watch the video below. There are so many worse cases of theft rather than just copyright.
Link: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=jxtoaTF9hu8&feature=related
I personally think that this shouldn’t be considered stealing, unless people continue to do this and it goes out of control. I would consider stealing as actually going to a store, taking a movie, and running out. The person in the video wasn’t stealing; she was downloading. She was only downloading the video for herself. Also with downloading movies for free, people can watch movies anytime they want and is very convenient. But when they soon find out that they in the future, will have to pay for it, this completely puts the consumer off and they wouldn’t be bothered, and think that “what’s the use for paying for a video that I’m not too interested in.” Other people may go ahead and buy a whole range of videos, and later on realizing that most of the videos they bought did not suit their interests and was not worth it, throwing a large amount of money down the drain. I think the government is being too hard on us and they need to realize that we also have rights.
Other issues that the government considers copyright infringements are on Youtube and peer to peer file sharing softwares. First of all, Youtube is a virtual community and an interactive environment where we can all share and post videos of any kind, and is also open to the public. We should have our own freedom of choice and speech in which videos we post on this website. This is NOT and SHOULD NOT be controlled by the government; we have our own rights and freedom.
Posting a movie or a TV episode on Youtube isn’t as bad as actually downloading the movie off the internet. Also this video isn’t only our video but is everybody’s to share. As I said, this is also convenient and this can offer a whole variety of films and episodes that we can choose from and view anytime we want. With this, we can watch a video, and see if we like it or not. If it’s a good video, we can even go and buy it, otherwise, it was good to watch. We can even catch up on episodes that we missed on TV, instead of waiting for months until this shows again. But the government, despite the fact that this is an interactive environment where we have our own rights, they still consider this a major copyright infringement. Also, we cannot buy some movies or episodes depending on where this is based on and the only way we can view this is through Youtube. Another issue that is looked upon as a major copyright infringement is the downloading of music through file sharing.
Peer to peer file sharing is another interactive environment, a little bit like MSN, where we share music and videos with other users. This is very similar to emailing attachments to other people for them to use. We are sharing the music not stealing. But the government still blindly thinks that this is a copyright violation. If this is a copyright violation, than shouldn’t emailing attachments also be a copyright violation? Second of all, music is different from videos. With music, we hear it almost everyday, some songs, even twice a day. People, especially friends can easily make copies of CD’s either for themselves or give them away, and they have a right to do so. Also, downloading songs to an Ipod or Mp3 is easy with this file sharing method, than actually buying them . With file sharing, people can download a whole range of songs free of charge, but when they buy, they are limited. One of the first file sharing programs was Napstar, which became very popular but was forced to shut down because of many copyright infringements.
Now, the government has even placed many lawsuits against Kazaa, forcing the company to pay a big fine. If any free file sharing companies gets banned, this could also result in a loss for companies such as Apple and other companies, which produce Ipods and Mp3s. Also, people who still download songs off the internet will be forced to pay and give their contact info, worried about their account getting hacked into and loosing a lot of money. Which is worse, downloading songs for free, or hacking into other people’s accounts, resulting in a great loss of money for them? Here is another video that talks about peer to peer file sharing companies, and copyright on Youtube, and how it should be dealt with.
Link: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=rr9SQ4qkMMk
I personally think that although the law of copyright has some advantages, there are also lots of disadvantages to this. The government thinks blindly about this without realizing the consequences to this. They should also realize that we also have rights and they should be respected. With the new DVD players, they are programmed so that they cannot play any pirated copies or DVDs. WE SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO VIEW ANYTHING WE WANT!!! The government should not keep monitoring every single move we make and instead should get off our backs, and stop interfering with our personal life. We have rights and they should be respected properly. Thank you for spending your time reading this, and please tell us what you think about this by commenting below. Good day.
The Anti-Copyright Movement Forum 