Topic 11 - The Ethics of Peer-to-Peer File Sharing

Lecture

This week's lecture discussed Peer-to-Peer file sharing and whether or not it is ethical. We watched a movie called Steal This Film II, which talked about copyrighted material being distributed amongst members of the public. It discussed how the entertainment industry have had to take many different courses of action in order to stop piracy and that while they will never be able to fully eradicate it, law enforcement can make it as tedious as possible for the offenders and let them know that there are consequences for their actions. Peer-to-Peer file sharing can be considered immoral as it means people are receiving music without people paying for it and are essentially ripping off the artist who made the music/movie/tv show. It is stealing. However, in the grander scheme of things, it's such a miniscule issue. Generally people do it because they only want one song off an artist not the whole album. And a lot of the time, real fans of an artist will go out and buy the album in a store, to support the artist and have the artwork to prove it. In conclusion, I think Peer-to-Peer file sharing is okay in moderation. 

Readings

This week the reading was called When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, The Birth of Dissent, and A Brief History of Record Industry Suicide. It is written by Demonbaby, a blogger who works in the record industry. He starts off by noting the unbelievable amounts of money that are spent in the industry, superbly ridiculous amounts on dinners, alcohol and hotels. He then delves into the history of digital music, how before we came to use MP3's it was all about cassette tapes and then CD's and that any copies made were pretty scratchy and of poor quality. And then Napster was developed, a Peer-to-Peer File sharing system,  and suddenly people were able to copy and share music as they pleased. The record industry treated Napster and other programs like it as a threat. The record industry did not move with the times, did not supply digital music quickly enough for the masses and the public sought what they wanted by pirating and Peer-to-Peer File Sharing. Sure people would still buy CD's of the bands they liked in order to support them, but generally computer users had found a cheap and easy way to get music, and the record companies and artists began to lose money, since essentially the public was stealing from them. It is really only recently that the industry has tried to crack down on piracy. Most acknowledge that it will never fully be eradicated. The industry has turned more digitally friendly, with the release of MP3 players and online stores like iTunes offering competitive prices for music per song to scale down piracy and be more flexible for today's needs.