The Booming Business of Piracy

          In the past 5 years piracy has grown so much that it is not uncommon to the average consumer to illegally own non-authentic items. Whether it is movies, software, music, or textbooks, if its overpriced then chances are somewhere (somehow) there is an easily down-loadable pirated copy available. So why hasn’t legislation done something to control this? Simple answer. They can’t. If they could have they would have – or at minimum they would have taxed it. The beauty and curse of the internet is the ability for anyone to be able to upload whatever they want. To control what people do online would be VIRTUAL-ly impossible (hehehe). 

Congress Efforts

          Legislation does make efforts to control online piracy with the latest being a government grant given to universities that educate and implement programs that deter illegal downloading. Although I see no incentive or alternative given to people who illegally download on campus, I’ll bite and think it’ll work. However, I think the main problem is how are online users going to be controlled while at home? What about foreign websites? How can they be effectively controlled - without the US appearing to police the online world? The recent bill they voted on is an attempt to control these rogue websites that make pirated goods available; however, there is strong national and international criticism and although I like to consider myself a law abiding citizen I disagree with this bill. Not only do I think this would be impossible to implement, but I also feel that the government has no right to blacklist websites and control what the American people want to see. What would then stop them from taking additional steps, controlling more and more. 

          Yes, I understand it is illegal and how companies and people should get paid for their services, but I also know that these artists do benefit from having their work being transferred from computer to computer. I like to think of it in terms of economies of scale: $9.99 to buy a CD, $1.00 to buy just one song, $9.99/month for unlimited downloads to a small percentage of guilty conscience users, $0.00 to millions of online users, where the artist just benefits from the promotion. 

          Whether wrong or right, I see online piracy as an unstoppable force that you can’t stop, you can only hope to contain.