Music Downloading
"Music Downloading"
Music downloading has become an unstoppable force the past few years; Will the government ever find a way to contain it? I believe the government is wasting money and time in the efforts to stop illegal music downloading because it cannot be stopped. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is one of the biggest anti-piracy groups in America. They have tried everything from putting seals no albums to threatening people with outstanding fines if they are caught with copyrighted music. None of these efforts have worked however, therefore it seems to me that the attempts are worthless, and sometimes you have to let technology take its course.
This issue first hit the scene when a program called Napster was developed in 1999. Napster is a "Peer-to-Peer" file sharing program. A Peer-to-Peer sharing program involves a group of networked people, who can share items on the computer with other people at no cost. Napster focused mainly on music, someone could go out and buy a CD, then load it to the computer and share it worldwide through the program. In December of 1999, the RIAA sued Napster's creator Shawn Fanning for copyright infringement. In 2001, a judge ruled that Napster was to cancel its distribution of copyrighted material for free; and in 2002, it did.
After the release of Napster in 1999, it didn't take computer wizards long to break the code of Napster. In 2003, there were at least 14 copycat programs that used the same illegal software originally used by Napster. These programs included "Kazaa", "Bear Share", and "Morephous". The RIAA has made attempts get people to pay monthly wages to download music, but they have yet to catch on being that people can still download for free. You may also notice that Burger King and Pepsi are offering free music downloads when purchasing their products. An article on www.wired.com reports that since September, there have been 1,445 individual lawsuits and 381...
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