From the heated debates about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) to the elimination of Megaupload.com and indictment of its CEO Kim Dotcom, it is evident that Internet piracy is a prominent national issue in 2012.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), since the emergence of peer-to-peer file sharing services in 1999: annual music sales have dropped from $14.9 billion to $7.7 billion, over 30 billion illegal music downloads were made from 2004 to 2009, and only 37 percent of music downloads were made legally in 2009.
I was surprised the number of legal downloads was even that high.
It’s easy to see why so many people use file-sharing services to get music and other media. It’s convenient, it’s simple and it’s extremely cheap, if not free.
Unfortunately, it’s also illegal.
The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) criminalized services that gave access to copyright infringing material and also heightened penalties for Internet pirates. File-sharing companies such as Napster, Kazzaa, Limewire and Megaupload have been dissimilated due to their breaching of DMCA regulations. Furthermore, individual pirates, including many college students, continue to get notices from RIAA representatives stating that they could face civil litigation for stealing music.
Even though the DMCA offers protection for intellectual property, it is apparent from the RIAA’s statistics above that pirates do not fear the DMCA. If piracy is to be stopped, more legislation is in order.
Enter SOPA and PIPA. These proposed bills took a different approach to stopping piracy. Instead of trying to track pirates after they download, they would make it so any service that provides access to copyright infringing material could be shut down immediately if the copyright owners petition to do so.
It seems like a decent idea in theory, but popular sites like Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube and thousands of other smaller sites said their businesses would be crippled and vehemently protested the bills. These parties said that PIPA and SOPA violate first amendment rights and also fail to recognize a liability clause in the DMCA that allows sites to operate if a party posts infringing material to their site.
On January 16, websites, small and large, staged a collective protest against SOPA and PIPA. If you went on Google or Wikipedia, you were directed to a link, explaining that if the two bills passed the Internet would be a in a state of constant censorship monitored by the government and big corporations. Many sites offered links to petitions that individuals could sign to show their congressmen that they did not approve of the bills.
The effect was incredible.
Millions of electronic signatures petitioning SOPA and PIPA were signed and the acts lost congressional support overnight. On January 20, the primary sponsors pulled both bills from the congressional voting process, but asserted they would be back with a bill that protects American intellectual property.
So the Internet protest was successful, but is there really anything to celebrate about?
Individuals will continue to pirate media. Clearly something needs to be done, but how will any legislation be passed if it receives such an overwhelming amount of negativity from the public?
Is it that big of a deal to buy music? Is it really that hard to go on iTunes and buy an album for $11.99? Does anybody even remember going to stores to purchase CDs?
The inherent issue with Internet piracy is that people don’t think it is the same as stealing from a retail store’s shelf, but in reality, it is. Billions of dollars are being lost in revenue each year from this piracy. Internet piracy is going to continue to cripple industries and legislators will continue to come up with ways to try to stop it.
I ask my peers if they buy music and they laugh. When I tell them that I buy music, they glare at me like I’m foolish.
“Why on earth would you buy it when you can get it for free?” This is what they always ask me.
I will continue to buy my music because purchasing music is the legal way to acquire my favorite songs. Furthermore, I want to revitalize a dying industry by supporting the artists who create the music I love. I just hope other people start feeling the same way.
By Brown and White assistant sports editor Connor Tait, ’14.
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