File sharing is a difficult subject to analyse as there are
many aspects to it which make it both immoral and moral. The music and film
industry have been particularly upset over this issue as they believe file sharing
is costing them huge amounts of money. Martin,
Moore and Salter (2010) write that ‘the sharing of music files has been the
focus of a massive struggle between representatives of major record companies
and artists in the music industry, on one side, and peer–to–peer (p2p)
file–sharing services and their users, on the other.’
File sharing is
a ‘crime’ that most of us commit on a daily basis without even giving it a
second thought. When downloading our favourite songs, television shows or movies
it is easy to forget that these were not intended to be available for free. Whenever
someone tells me of a new show my immediate track of thought is not to go out
and buy a copy of the episode, it is to simply download it. Yet the reality is
this is not in any sense legal.
From the perspective of the film industry file sharing has a
significant impact on their earnings. Film industry bosses exclusively told BBC that illegal downloading
is costing them ‘£170m a year’ (Cochrane 2011). This article, which was
published on the BBC website, has a brief timeline breakdown of the years in
which file sharing has impacted on music and film industry. In 2008 it was
found by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry that ‘40
billion music files were downloaded without payment... meaning 95% of all
digital music was downloaded illegally’ (IFPI cited in Cochrane 2011).
Devaluation
versus validation is an area in which the film and music industries use to
shame those who are ‘pirates’ or file sharers. Everybody has seen the 'piracy, it's a crime' commercial played at EVERY cinema release. The FBI websiteincorporates file sharing under intellectual property theft. In terms of
criminality file sharing is seen by the community as a victimless crime yet can it really
continue to be seen as that? It is easy to click a button and download a television
show, movie or song but what about the industries that have put millions of
dollars into the productions of these?
References
Martin, B, Moore, C and Salter, C. 2010, ‘Sharing music files: tactics of a challenge to the industry’, First Monday, vol. 15, no. 12, [available:http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2986/2680].
Cochrane, G. 2011, Newsbeat, BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/14027777
Intellectual Property Theft, FBI, http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/white_collar/ipr/ipr
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Hi Jaime
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this blog to see where you place piracy on film and music. Film seems to lose more due to the fact that all the money is spent on one screening per person (generally) and if it’s pirated they lose 18 bucks a ticket. Selling music though benefits the record companies and not the artists. The artists tend to use their music these days as publicity for their live show and that’s where they make the money from. Record companies tend to have a stake in that profit also, so they’re set. The music bought or not, gets fans excited and locks them in to buy tickets to a live show. Also digitally, Australia has a huge mark up and music for some reason and the world call this the ‘Australia Tax’, which is an unfair way to make more money. Maybe the reason why we are such pirates.
Really enjoyed reading this and gaining an insight with facts!
If one of your friends told you of an episode of, let's say, Scrubs that was an absolute masterpiece of an episode and redefined television shows, how could you watch it? You can look it up on Wikipedia to find out what episode it was, then you could buy the whole season for roughly $25 on DVD. For one episode, that is ridiculous. You would be out of your mind not to try and download it for free.
ReplyDeleteOn my blog I touched on that there were simply no reasonable alternatives to piracy in Australia. I'm subscribed to NetFlix which is a wonderful app that gives you access to a whole lot of documentaries, movies and TV shows. But a large portion of Australians could not get it as they are unaware of it and unable to install it without help. Australia should introduce models that make accessing media cheaper and more accessible without Piratey means.
I wouldn't mind paying for a service that gave me things I have a right to have access to.