Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Criteria D

Privately owned telecommunication industries could develop and install programs that would censor illegal downloading sites and make them inaccessible to internet users. When a user tries to access the website, they will be shown a page that says the site they are seeking is not available. No one would be able to install programs such as Napster or Limewire. The problem with this concept would be management and compliance. Once certain addresses are blocked new ones would appear. In order for it to work, it would require constant monitoring and updating. Also, it would only work if all the internet service providers co-operated together.

Another possible solution would be working through the government. Actual copyrights would be changed and downloading would actually be legal but heavily monitored. Yearly payments would be made to the music industry based on the number of downloads that have occurred and the payments would be channeled through the government. Money would be generated through increased cost of internet service and this added “tax” would be set aside to be divided among the entertainment industry companies who have had music downloaded. The problem with this solution is that it adds another level of government involvement in the everyday life of citizens. It also could become very cumbersome and difficult to manage because of the huge scope of the project that would have to be taken in order for it to be effective.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Criteria E

Bibliography:
1. Hynes, Chris. "Survey: 67% of students don't care about illegal downloading ." Daily Collegian 04 04 2007 1-2. 18 Jan 2009 .
2. Redmond, Wash. "Teens Less Likely to Download Illegally When They Know the Laws, Microsoft Survey Finds." Microsoft. 13 02 2008. 18 Jan 2009 .
3. Mockey, Nick. "Illegal Downloading In Decline Among Youth." Digital Trends 27 05 2007 18 Jan 2009 .
4. "Legal downloads swamped by piracy ." BBC News 16 01 2009 18 Jan 2009 .
5. Layton, Julia. "How Digital Rights Management Works." How Stuff Works?. 20 OCT 2008. 19 Jan 2009 .
6. Einbrodt, Ulrich. "The Juxtaposition of Good and Bad or: Legal and Illegal Downloads. The MP3 Format and its Chances for Musicians and Fans. ." 1-6. 10 Feb 2009 .

Criteria C

Criteria C:
There are several impacts that arise with the issue of illegal downloading. The music industry suffers severely because less and less people end up buying CDs and an increase in numbers of people download illegally. When a large number of people download music illegally and this number grows bigger each day this causes a great change in the music industry, because it causes them to have to come up with a new ways to make profits.
The stakeholders affected by illegal downloads are the recording artists, the musicians, recording companies, and the record stores. While illegal downloading is still occurring they cannot be making the profit they could be making. The social impacts are the acceptance of downloading. People are not seeing it as a criminal offense but a civil offense and this is why people are not taking it as a matter of great importance. Downloading could be legal if it is done the right way from iTunes or Amazon. If it is downloaded without being paid the right amount or not paying at all from websites such as Bit torrent or Napster then it is an illegal act.
Though many people enjoy the ability to download music when they want, there is also a great fear of downloading viruses along with the music. Spyware, which is stored on the computer and puts out information without the computer owner knowing it, is also another concern among people who regularly download. These things act as deterrents to keep the numbers from increasing much quicker than they could.

Criteria B

Criteria B:
The Internet has become widespread around the world, and therefore a large number of people have access to it. The Internet has become a utility and so has music, it no longer is a product (Kusek). The change in the Music Industry came through the impact of technology; advances were made in digital technology that have caused this rapid change. Personal computers, digital recorders, the Internet and illegal p2p (peer to peer) services are the cause of this change. P2p networks and other computer based systems, allow individual computers to connect to and share music files over the internet, for free illegally. Proxy servers are used to access web pages created by other computers, and since proxy servers store information from a web site you have already accessed on the proxy server the next time we access the page it does not have to load again since the information has already been cached.
There are both legal and illegal ways to download music through legal and illegal digital distribution services. The recording industry is trying to figure out a way to stop the music leakage, since CD sales have dropped a great deal. The industry has attempted to boost the sales by dropping CD prices and filling-lawsuits against Internet users who share music files. (Kusek) The problem with p2p file-sharing programs is that there is no central server where information would be stored to indicate what files are commonly downloaded and shared.
The p2p market plays a large role in changing the music industry it has a large variety of music that is available for music fans on the Internet database. This fast file- sharing software has been embrassed by millions of people regardless of its legality. It has been supported faster than any other technology even the telephone, personal computers and even the Internet.
Illegal downloads continue to be made on a daily basis, files are being downloaded through p2p file sharing programs in a month, more than what the music industry makes in a year. People are willing to pay for music if it’s the right price over the Internet and therefore for that very reason legitimate downloads are still being made (Kusek).
Bit Torrent is a program that is different than any other peer-to –peer method of downloading. It has a tracker which is it’s central server where all the file tracking works, in order to be able to download files from its server you have to share this principle is referred to as ‘tit-for-tat’. Bram Cohen’s who is one of Bit Torrents developer found a way to stop the trafficking and to make the transmission easier the way he did this was to increase the speed of downloading for users so in order to receive files you have to give them the more files you share the faster your downloads are likely to complete. Once the download has completed onto your computer it becomes a seed which means that when another user begins to download the same file it is seeding off of your computer. Another way to increase the speed of the download is to have a mass storage on your computer because when space runs out files that you are attempting to download stops loading.

Criteria A

Criteria A:
In April 2007 a survey was conducted amongst college students nationwide on the issue of illegal downloading, an estimated 67 percent of the student body do not care about illegal downloading, because they are not concerned about the illegality of it they just care about the access and the cost . Even if the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) gets involved. (Hynes). It seems this problem does not just arouse with college students, a large number of people world wide are not bothered with illegal downloading habits, though a survey conducted by Microsoft shows that students between seventh and 10th grade are less likely to download illegally if they are informed of the laws about sharing and downloading content online.(Redmond) A report done by the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) stated that ninety-five per cent of music is illegally downloaded online. (BBC)
In the past when people still bought vinyl records at record stores, piracy and illegal downloading was not a problem, and even if people thought of copying them it would have been hard to achieve. A few bootleg records were made from live performances but that was as far as it went and therefore record companies were not worried. When sound were made digital by CDs record companies began to become worried since this gave people the opportunity to rip off tracks by CD burners and then put them onto personal computers and give them to their peers. Over the internet people were quickly able to reproduce and illegally share music with an unlimited amount of people.
Then came the problem of copyright, the digital revolution that gave users the chance to use digital content in creative new ways has made it impossible for copyright holders to control the distribution of music.