Friday, March 6, 2009

Tech Research Class

Copyright Lab Task: Review the following Youtube videos and compare/contrast using the sheet provided in class.
My Sweet Lord” performed by George Harrison
He’s So Fine” performed by The Chiffons

I Want a New Drug” performed by Huey Lewis and the News
Ghostbusters” performed by Pay Parker, Jr.

Copyright Article: Due by next class...
Read the following article and respond to this blog post by commenting on the following:

Courthouse Rock by Steve Levy
Do you think that suing pirates works to stop piracy?
This article was written in 2003...looking at how sharing music is handled in 2009, was the music industry out of touch with consumers or is it the same?
Does it matter morally?

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think suing pirates will stop piracy entirely. They'll get afraid, but after awhile, they'll be tempted and just do it all over again. Yes, the music industry was out of touch with the consumers back in 2003. I mean, they sued people who actually could not pay the fines that were ridiculously expensive, at least in my opinion. All of this does matter morally, because technically people are stealing the work of others. Companies just have to find a way that will help both them and consumers.

Anonymous said...

I think that the music industries should sue the companies that are making these players and burners instead of the people that download the songs. Even though those who do download know that it is wrong, they do it beacause it is more convenient and cheaper; it's free. Right now, it's not a good time to be sued. People are already losing their jobs so they should take more precautions and lay off downloading illegal music. After the economic slump is over, music companies can deal with getting rid of the source.

Anonymous said...

The music industry was not in touch with it's consumers; they were suing them. I think that the music industries should sue the companies that are making these players and burners instead of the people that download the songs. Even though those who do download know that it is wrong, they do it beacause it is more convenient and cheaper; it's free. It is morally wrong, however some people don't see it as that. They see it as everyone doing it and being able to get away with it. Right now is not a good time to be suing pirates. Money is short and it would take longer to get the money. People that are already losing their jobs should take more precautions and lay off downloading illegal music. After the economic slump is over, music companies can deal with getting rid of the source.

Anonymous said...

I don't think that suing the pirates that illegally download music is going to do anything. Chances are, you're just suing some kid that doesn't know any better, or some honest people who can't afford to pay the price. What they should really be doing is going after the actual companies, such as Limewire and Frostwire, and Kazaa, because, let's face it, suing a bunch of people isn't going to do anything. There is no possible way you can sue over a million people. Yes, I believe the music industry was out of touch with consumers back in 2003. I mean, clearly they were, due to the escalation of music sharing in the past 6 years. Also, all of this is morally wrong, because you could be ruining the chances of some band to make a living out of their dream.

Meaghan C. said...

No, I don't believe that suing pirates will stop piracy. There will always be more and more people everyday who start downloading music illegally. With the economy going down people have less money to spend on spend on unessential item, such as $.99 music, and free downloading sites are a solution to this problem. Some people who start downloading music illegally might have not heard of the threats, or they could have been downloading music for a while and have never gotten caught, so they just continue what they are doing. The music industry was definitely out of touch with its consumers in 2003. It seem to still be out of touch now, because if it was in touch with it's consumers it would understand what its consumers want and it would find a better way to get people to stop downloading music illegally.
I think that it does matter morally, and instead of suing the people they should sue the sites where the free music was downloaded off of. What the people are doing is considered illegal, but the people should at least have a warning first if they are even going to be sued at all, and if they get that warning and still are downloading music illegally then they should get paid a fine, but not a ridiculously high one. ~Meaghan Cloherty

Anonymous said...

No, I don't think that suing the pirates will stop piracy, not even partially. Because, if many free music providers are getting sued along with the music consumers, some technologically inclined individual will sooner or later figure out an even more dangerous way to allow others to download music, inconspicuously, a way which completely eliminates anyone from figuring out the who, what, when, where, and why's of the consumers.

Of course they were out of touch; their way of thinking would not make much sense in our world today. Why would the music industry sue just a hundred, give or take a couple people, when they know quite well the ridiculous amount of people downloading music today? It makes absolutely no sense, considering the fact that it would only be a minute fraction of those that apparently deserve to be fined.

Morally? Well obviously all moral intentions have been forgotten by both the consumer and the people who share music. So, in simpler words, yes, it does matter morally...to me that is. In my opinion, being very "iTunes" literate, I think that songs are very expensive; ranging from 99 cents to 1.05$. Some may think these are cheap, but with people that have over 700 songs the price can accumulate. I can see why people can resort to doing such things. But these affect the music producers as well, what with CD's being close to 20$ they (music industries) tend to lose a lot in profits. In short, it should matter morally to those who illegally obtain music.

Anonymous said...

I think that suing pirates helps to stop piracy, but it doesn't stop it completely. I definitely think that the music business was out of touch with its consumers in 2003 vs. in 2009. I also believe that this matters morally, because it isn't right to take the work of someone without their permission.

Anonymous said...

Erin Fanikos said..

I believe that suing the pirates does not work to stop piracy. It may stop people from buying songs for a while,but not forever. I think that in 2003, the music industry was out of touch with its consumers. In 2009, music companies are more in control and they can moniter what happens to their music. To me, it does matter morally if you steal music. It is extremely wrong, and it not only hurts the music producer,but the person who steals that music.

Anonymous said...

I think that suing pirates helps a little to stop piracy, but does not stop it completely. Some people might not want to take the chance of being fined, but then others will just ignore it. Some people have been downloading music illegally for a while now, and since they have not been caught before, would continue doing so. The music industry was out of touch with the consumers in 2003 because they were suing them. The companies that are selling the music illegally should be getting sued, not the people. I think the music industry is still out of touch with the consumers, or else they would be targeting the sources of the illegal music - the companies illegally selling the music. It matters morally because even with the high costs and the effects of the economy, downloading the music illegally is still stealing. Music producers lose money and rules and laws are being broken.

Anonymous said...

I think that suing pirates would provide no help to stop the problem of illegal downloading. While the small percentage of people being sued or fined were being prosecuted, there are still millions of other people downloading illegally. Therefore, I believe there is no obvious solution to completely abolish pirating.

Yes, I believe the music industry was out of touch with customers in 2003. They sued their customers unjustly huge sums of money.

While I believe the people who download illegally know what they're doing is not completely moral, there are more important things on their minds. Especially during this period of economic suffering, spending one dollar a song can accumulate quickly. Decreasing the alloted money for music would be a quick and easy way to cut corners.

I believe that while there is no definite way to abolish pirating, a way to significantly decrease it would be to find a situation that is beneficial to all parties.

Anonymous said...

I believe that suing pirates will not stop piracy completely. In an a country where spending a dollar could be a big deal, more people are trying to get whatever they can for free. Although millions of people will continue to download music illegally, only a small number of people will be sued.
The music companies who are in charge are completely out of touch with their customers. Companies that distribute music such as iTunes charge .99 per song. WHen deliberating whether to pay an estimated $100 for one hundred songs or getting an unlimited amount of music for free, former music customers will decide to use P2P sharing files from around the world.
It makes no sense to charge teenagers who don't have a job billions of dollars in copyright settlements (not like they would be getting the money soon). Music companies should be sympathetic to those who could not bear to spend money in this run-down economy, but focus on something else.

Anonymous said...

I do not think that suing pirates would work to stop piracy because there are so many pirating. In 2003, yes the music industry was out of touch with the consumers. It does matter morally because it is a crime and the artists own their work. Most people would not want anyone else to steal their work. But I also think that the music companies should be more reasonable with how they price their products and how to handle copyright infringements.

Melissa Peruzzi said...

I dont think that sueing piartes will stop piracy. Some people dont care if they are sued of not. For and example some people may not be able to afford buying music from itunes so they use limewire. The people probably are still going to use limewire if they are sued or not. Also some people who copy a song may just pay the fine and then try and make money off of the song because some people may still like it. A solution can be to suggest using youtube instead of limewire where the music is still free but you cannot download it.

Anonymous said...

If people don't know that the songs they are downloading are illegal, I don't think they should be punished, but this would be difficult to prove. By punishing piracy, I don't think the pirates will stop selling illegal music, but they will try and find other ways to do so inconspicuously. But the fines for the people who download illegal music are unnecessarily high, especially if the downloaders did not know that the music was illegal. The pirates sell the music because in our economy, especially at the present time, it is difficult to earn money and many people are losing jobs. Piracy provides a way to gain money, illegally, yet quickly. Personally, I would rather pay 99 cents for a song on itunes than pay a $150,000 fine per song that was illegally downloaded.

Victoria Mayo said...

Suing pirates may make a small impact, but overall I do not think it will stop people from illegal downloading. Over the years, the numbers of people involved in piracy have grown with resources such as limewire becoming more popular. Because there are so many people using these resources, the fear of being sued seems less threatening. If people started getting sued for piracy, i think it may be too late to stop it all from happening.

Anonymous said...

I think that it is ridiculous for people who have downlodaed a few songs without paying to have to pay over 100,000 dollars per song. it seems unfair to the people who end up being sued. i think even if they were sued for maybe 10 dollars per song the message would come across better. if you illeagally downloaded 800 songs you would still owe 8,000 dollars. i think that would be better because people would realize... "i just spent 8,000 dollars on songs when i could have payed 800 on iTunes or something else" Rather than literally becomeing bankrupt they would realize their mistakes. i also think that this would allow them to catch more people. i dont however think downloading will go away completely.

Anonymous said...

I do not think music industruies should sue pirates. I do not believe it would do much either. It will make people afraid but eventually people will start doing it again. There are many popular sites that consumers download music from such as limewire, bearshare, aries delight and more. If these things are available to use, chances are people are going to use them. Downloading shared music is cheap, quick and easy as opppose to buying music. Industries to sue websites and companies that make it possible for people to downlaod music free of charge. I think people understand that it is illegal and wrong but do it anyways because when your friends are getting their music for free and you're bothering your mother for an iTunes gift card, chances are you're going to find these websites quite convenient. Industries need to come up with a way to disbale these websites. It will be a very difficult task because there are so many of them but if its becoming that much of a problem. they must find a way.

Anonymous said...

I think that sueing pirates may work on the people that are being sued, but others will still continue to illegally download songs. The music industry was not in touch with their consumers in 2003. The people being sued should have been the creators of the websites, as opposed to the people downloading music. They could have also tried to shut down the sites, therfore preventing future piracy. This issue also matters morally. A good person would most likley try to refrain from downloading music illegaly, while a more immoral person would be downloading frequently. Some people with good morals will download music as well. They may look at it as borrowing a cd, but it does not have to be returned. I think that companies should focus more on eraseing the problem (the websites themselves) than punishing people for it.

Anonymous said...

No, suing pirates will not stop piracy at all. Some pirates will be caught but they will continue to pop up everywhere. The only way to eliminate piracy is to get rid of equipment that helps pirates create their pirated videos or music. One can only continue hacking away at the weeds tirelessly and perhaps that will be enough. The record companies should also not sue people who buy the music because technically they paid for the music but should instead sue those selling them.

Amanda Brandi said...

1) I do not think suing pirates works to stop piracy. Millions of people download music illegally, and so each of them figure it will not happen to them. Roughly 99.99% of them are correct. Furthermore, it seems likely that music industries suing a few customers in multi-million dollar cases will only increase discontent will their strategy and polities, causing more people to download illegally rather than bothering to pay $1 for a song, particularly the many people who download dozens if not hundreds of songs at once.

2) Considering that there is a conflict involving the music industry and some of its own customers, I’d consider it fair to say that the music industry is out of touch with its consumers. This generation is becoming increasingly high-tech and more and more people over the past several years have become willing to illegally download music to avoid the high-prices of songs. Suing a few customers for millions of dollars as a warning to others is not going to make people more eager to compromise for a workable plan to legally download music, or convince people that they should pay for it at all. I feel the music industry should be able to come up with more persuasive and less objectionable methods to employ in an effort to decrease illegal downloading by consumers today.

3) Morally, there are issues on both sides. I think that if a person legally owns a song, it is not objectionable for that person to make copies and/or share it with friends, family, acquaintances, et cetera. This would be similar to sharing a toy, something we are theoretically encouraged to do from childhood. It would be objectionable, however, to upload it online for anyone who owns a computer to download, potentially costing the music industry thousands of dollars they should have been paid. On the other hand, it is not right for the music industry to select a few customers they can trace and sue perfectly average people millions of dollars. It seems this would be making often hard-working people already struggling to make ends meet in this economy suffer altogether too severe punishments merely to make up for the fact that the music industry cannot sue everyone. Instead, this would be making an example of the few they can sue, trying them for millions and essentially making them scapegoats for millions guilty of the same offence, in an attempt to warn others off.