Media pracy still popular despite the laws set in place

Illegal downloading has become the popular way to obtain music and video through online sources. Web sites such as LimeWire and FrostWire are the most common sites used to download music and videos without paying money. Although users can set up an account where they are paying for content they download, the media they are getting is still considered illegal because the musician or the movie studios are not being paid directly. There are sites where downloading is legal as long as the user has an account, such as iTunes and Graboid. Because there are people associated with these sites, the content that users can purchase or stream is legal. There are a lot of places online to download media illegally. Even though sites such as iTunes and Graboid are well known and safe, people continue to gain media content through illegal sites. Students seem to be more inclined to partake in illegal downloading due to lack of funds. “The thing with music is I hate how each song, if you bought it on iTunes, it’s a dollar each,” said junior Elliot Rowe. “My iTunes library has four thousand songs. That’s four thousand dollars out of my pocket that I don’t have.” The debate on what to do with sites where music is obtained illegally has continued for many years. Napster was shut down in 2001 and with online stores such as iTunes jacking up prices, students are finding other ways to get the content they want. Currently movie downloading has become a popular trend because of DVD costs. “The one main thing is money,” Rowe said. “If I went out and bought all of these movies I wouldn’t have any money. You just go on a Web site and click download and you got it. It’s like, if it’s that easy, then I’m not going to go out and spend $20 on a new movie when I can just click on a computer two times and get it.” Movie and music studios have piracy warnings on cases trying to deter people from copying the media. Films continue to have piracy warnings on their title screens before the film plays. It still doesn’t seem to matter how many warnings are put out. “Just because you tell people that are under 21 they can’t drink, they’re going to,” said senior Dan Halley. “But you don’t hear very often about people being caught for downloading.” Movies obtained through the Internet can be used more than just on a computer. Video game consoles such as Playstation 3 and X-Box have created wireless controllers with a port that will read a USB drive and the console will play the video on a television. “It’s a lot nicer because I just throw it on a flash drive and watch it on my X-Box,” said Rowe. Ethics continue to affect one’s judgment of whether illegal downloading is really that big of a deal. The amount of money musicians and movie studios make goes beyond eight digits in some cases, and people continue to ignore that they are still losing money because of illegal Web sites. “You’re ripping off the people who are making this stuff, but at the same time saying that they have millions of dollars so they won’t know or care,” said Halley. “But think about all of the people that are saying that.”