Ma, Zhaodong
Professor Klepper
English 113B
September
23, 2013
The Battle between the Internet
and Copyright
Since the Internet was created, it became the most effective
and fast way to work and study. The Internet has changed the way that people
used to live since at the same time people have given the Internet more
features to help
share their life. You can find anything you want on the Internet in just a few
seconds and enjoy its convenience and speed. However, you may receive
an indictment from someone or some company saying that you are not legally
allowed to read or listen to certain materials because they are copyrighted.
Thus, people have to pay thousands of dollars for a penalty without knowing
what exactly happened, and unfortunately there are many cases like that. People
search and then download something without being stopped and they have to pay
for this apparent “fault”.
Well in my opinion, anything involving
copyright should not be posted on the Internet until it becomes public domain.
The Internet is a huge stage which is helpful to spread information quickly and
because of that, it is also very hard to control. Although it is protected by
copyright law, no one can guarantee that it is perfectly safe if people put
their property online. Moreover, the reason why people keep illegally
downloading is they don’t want to pay much money for something that can just be
downloaded a few times and cannot be kept forever. From this point, I think
that companies should decrease the price of their products, thus more people
would be willing to pay.
The Internet is considered to be a free
platform where people can share and find something important or necessary to
their life. If someone posts anything on the Internet, people automatically
assume that they are willing to share with them. If not, then why post
something online rather than saving them in the flash or elsewhere? Moreover, I
don’t think people who share within a little group should be treated as
copyright infringement even though it’s on the Internet. For example, in 2006 a
single mother named Jammie Thomas was accused by a record company for
downloading music illegally and had to pay as much as twenty two thousand
dollars. The website where she downloaded music from was KASA. People would
sign in and upload music which they were willing to share and download music
that others shared. It was like a big house where family members can share their
music. If people can legally share in their house, then why would it be illegal
on the Internet?
On the other hand, in order for people to
protect their property they should not post or upload something that is
personal or otherwise important. “Identity theft statistics are shocking! In the
past five years, 1 in 4 Americans was a
victim of identity theft making it America's fastest growing crime.
Identity theft statistics indicate that this crime costs the government,
businesses, and citizens of America billions
of dollars each year (White Canyon)”.
As modern technology began developing, the Internet was no longer a safe place
anymore. People were trying to dig out information from others and use that
information to achieve their goal. “According to the Sunday Times, the hackers used stolen login details for a
Postbank teller and a call center agent to transfer about $6.7 million into
multiple bank accounts that were opened across the country late last year (Sarah Jacobsson Purewal)”. Thus from the person who are trying to post something involved
copyright or other important information’s view, it is better idea to keep your
property away from internet.
Well no one can deny the fact that Internet is a super huge platform
that can help individual and companies achieve their commercial goal. Even
though it is very hard to protect their products from being stolen, they are
willing to try to sell those products online. Because Internet is so flexible
and visional, it is very hard to trace the person who steel or downloaded
illegally. “The
RIAA reports that music sales in the United States have dropped 47 percent
since Napster first debuted in 1999. The availability of free music has cost
the music industry $12.5 billion in economic losses. (Amy Adkins)”.
Since the Internet is so large and complex, it is almost impossible to avoiding
being hacked or stolen from. Benefits always go with risk.
As previously mentioned, instead of
downloading things illegally, people would prefer buying them at a lower price.
Many don’t want to risk getting sued for downloading illegally, however they
also don’t want to pay twenty dollars for one song which only allows to be
downloaded few times. There are many solutions and one of them is to use the
modern price model. “Theoretically,
households will consider the relative cost of owning versus renting when making
housing tenure choices.” For example, Coulson and Fisher (2002) found that the
relative cost of buying versus renting is an important factor affecting
household tenure choices. Sinai and Souleles (2005) found that when rent
variance is high, housing demand increases. Himmelberg et al. (2005)
compared the costs of house ownership in different cities in the USA. Their
study reveals that the costs of ownership in cities constrained by inelastic
supply are relatively higher than the costs of renting. One representative paper
is that of Capone (1995), which builds a theoretical model to compare the cost
of owning versus that of renting to describe how households make housing tenure
choices (Tsai, I-C. and C-W.
Peng).”
Houses with a lower price, just like other online products, can bring much
advantage of quantity thus bringing much benefit. Since people compare rental
cost and house price, people would always consider the price of online products
and downloading illegally. If they can get a lower priced product, then they wouldn’t
want to download illegally which carries high risk.
However, to some extent, piracy behavior
sometimes helps companies or individuals gain benefit indirectly. “Finally, we could try to excuse
this piracy with the argument that the piracy actually helps the copyright
owner. When the Chinese “steal” Windows, the Chinese becomes dependent on
Microsoft. Despite Microsoft losing the value of the software that was taken,
it gains users who are using this software. Over time, as the nation grows wealthier,
more and more people will buy software rather than steal it (Lessig, Lawrence).” Piracy
has been shown to help artists gain more exposure as well as benefiting
companies with what individuals’ desire. “Piracy may indirectly
improve consumer and end-user demand for complementary products, such as
apparel, merchandise and live performances ([107] Mortimer et al. ,
2012). People who are thus exposed to a particular artist may be more inclined
to seeing them live despite pirating their music. “In addition, the number of
new product releases on an annual basis is increasing in the face of digital
copying ([61] Handke, 2012).”
In conclusion, copyright is very difficult
to apply into the Internet. Whenever there is someone sharing, there is someone
else illegally downloading. People will always
like free things especially if that item has a high price. If you want to
connect to the Internet with your products then prepare to fight a battle.
However, as mentioned above, companies may also benefit indirectly and if price
become lower, thus benefitting both companies and people at the same time.
Work Cited
Sarah Jacobsson Purewal, PCWorld, Hackers Steal $6.7
Million in Cyber Bank Robbery, http://www.pcworld.com/article/248340/hackers_steal_6_7_million_in_cyber_bank_robbery.html
Amy Adkins , Demand Media, How Does Illegally Downloading
Music Impact the Music Industry?, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/illegally-downloading-music-impact-music-industry-27748.html
Lessig, Lawrence.
Free culture : how big media uses
technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity
Tsai, I-C. and C-W. Peng, 2011, Bubbles in the Taiwan housing market:
The determinants and effects. Habitat International, 35, pp.
379–90.
Goode, S. (2012). Initial findings of a gap analysis of
the digital piracy literature: Six undiscovered countries. Journal of
Research in Interactive Marketing, 6(4), 238-259.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17505931211282382
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