Piracy is a growing crime in the United States, more specifically in the high school to college age youth. As music, movies, and other media grows more popular, so does the demand for it. The prices of media seem to be growing, and many people cannot afford it. The decision is obvious, illegal downloading. However, this is more harmful that most people may think. This essay will be covering the three main reasons why illegal media downloading is harmful. One: downloading music and other media eventually causes financial distress on the producing company.
Two: downloading illegal can spread computer viruses, and malware. And three: it’s illegal. The peer-to-peer file-sharing program has been growing for years. The ease of hearing a song on the radio and clicking download has made most of the general public numb to the fact that peer to peer file sharing is illegal. This growing problem has caused many media companies to lose a vast amount of money do to illegally downloaded media. A ordinary Digital Video Disk (DVD) will generally cost about fourteen dollars (USD).
If one hundred people were to download a movie, then the movie producing company would have lost one thousand four hundred dollars, excluding tax and ignoring the fact that many people own Blu-ray players now. In 2008, peer to peer sharing of movies cost the movie industry six hundred and seventy million dollars (Bowels 1) . That is quite a hefty amount of money, most of the time piracy of a movie is on a newly released movie, or a movie that has not been released yet.
MPAA and NATO are offering reward to many ushers who catch people in theaters with camcorders who are illegally recording the film in order to distribute it, or even sell it (Bowels 1). Downloads of movies is not the only offense of Internet piracy; illegal music downloading is one of the most popular forms of piracy on the Internet. In 2007 and 2008 alone, a whopping ninety five percent of music downloads were illegal (Adams 1)! Obviously piracy has gotten out of control
This brings use to our next point, the fact that illegally downloading media can spread viruses through computers. It is no secret that computer viruses are very destructive. “Computer viruses are small software programs that are designed to spread from one computer to another and to interfere with computer operation. ” (What is a computer virus? ). “Computer viruses are often spread by attachments in email messages or instant messaging messages.
That is why it is essential that you never open email attachments unless you know who it’s from and you are expecting it. ” (What is a computer virus? ). Viruses destroy countless computers, and have to potential to destroy to reek havoc through out an entire college campus. This finally brings us to our third point. The biggest reason not to download media is simply because it is illegal. Illegally downloading music can cost up to two hundred and thousand dollars or five years and prison (Mackenzie 1).
When you think about it, download a few songs really is not worth it. Downloading one song from iTunes will usually cost about ninety-nine cents, which seems much more reasonable then two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A normal teenager usually has about eight hundred songs on their play-list, which are downloaded illegally (Mackenzie 1). Teenagers have become completely numb to the fact that downloading music is completely illegal and is essentially the same as walking into a store and stealing a compact disk (CD) or two.
Over all, downloading any sort of music is wrong; especially on campus. It is illegal, and truly deprives bands, movie producers, and program developer of their hard earned money. In these harsh economic times, bands, program developers, and movie producers cannot afford to lose money due to piracy, especially when it is the exact same as walking into a store and shop lifting. No one deserves to have money blatantly stolen from them, especially when they work months, and maybe even years on projects.
It would be as if someone were to steal a famous piece of artwork, or a famous land mark. In the end, illegally downloading media of any sort is just not worth it. Not only do you run the chance of getting caught and having jail time, you run the risk of a a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar fine as well as your internet privileges revoked. Pirating is unfair, unjust, and unethical; people need to pay the ninety-nine cents it cost to download a song, instead of illegally downloading an entire album, in the end, no one wins.
Work Cited Bowels, Scott. “Movie industry steps up piracy battle . ” Movie industry steps up piracy battle11/03/2008: 1. Web. 20 Feb 2011. . Adams, Sean. “Movie industry steps up piracy battle . ” Movie industry steps up piracy battle16/01/2009: 1. Web. 20 Feb 2011. . “What is a computer virus?. ” What is a computer virus? 1. Web. 20 Feb 2011. . Mackenzie, Ashley. “Penalty for Downloading Music Illegally . ” Penalty for Downloading Music Illegally27/06/2010: 1. Web. 21 Feb 2011. .
