After watching an episode of the IT Crowd on ABC2 last night (see YouTube clip below), and reading Emmy’s blog regarding the illegal downloading of music products, I have begun to contemplate other industries that have suffered due to the increasing effects of web 2.0.
In comparisons to web 1.0, where the webmaster simply updated sites to allow for people to peruse in personal searches for information, web 2.0 has dramatically changed it, making the web experience more exciting and pleasurable, where people are able to share opinions, ideas, and files (Deelip, 2007). File sharing over web 2.0 is a serious problem.
It is becoming more and more commonplace that people are jumping online to download pirated copies of films, television shows and music. It seems that within web 2.0, people feel it necessary to share everything that they have in order to allow others to download the products for free and save their funds for a rainy day.
Intellectual property means that anything intangible produced - be it a song, poem, story, theory or invention - is legally protected. Anything copyrighted, patented or trademarked is legally unable to be reproduced without the go-ahead from the creator and their business. For the internet, this not only relates to music, but television, film, photography, and many many more forms. Rifkin makes the projection that "Concepts, ideas, and images - not things - are the real items of value in the new economy" (2000, p.5). This is to impact our society immensely.
Obviously the most controversial topic of illegal downloading is music, but as this topic has been covered a number of times already in this assignment by others, I’m going to leave it. If you are looking for more information, head here.
One aspect of illegal uploading and downloading that I would like to consider is video clips. They are available just like music or television on torrent programs, they are also made readily available on media sharing spaces like YouTube. Viacom has taken legal action against YouTube, due to the number of video clips taken from MTV and posted on the site. By posting videos on YouTube, the person posting the file is giving YouTube permission to copy and redistribute the video (Dan, 2007), which obviously isn’t the case as the poster does not own rights to the file in the first place - MTV does. This is another way in which the creators and legitimate owners of the files lose out, as royalties are not paid, as there are no funds received for the watching and redistribution of the files.
Films have the exact same problem. From purchasing the film in a legitimate sense, the creators receive renumeration for their product. Even in a cinema situation, every ticket sold has a percentage that goes to the distributor - although when downloaded, the creator misses out, and even though you may have loved the film, it could turn out to be a monetary flop.
When you next choose to press that “download” button, think about the consequences for those who really deserve the royalties - not the massive corporations, but the producers and directors of the content.
ARIA (2007) Internet File Sharing: The Myths Explained http://www.aria.com.au/pages/InternetFileSharing-TheMythsExplained.htm (Accessed May 2, 2008)
Dan (2007) Marco.org YouTube’s Legal Woes http://www.marco.org/235 (Accessed May 2, 2008)
Deelip (2007) Blogspot: The Differences Between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. http://deelip.blogspot.com/2007/02/difference-between-web-10-and-web-20.html (Accessed May 2, 2008)
Rifkin, J. (2000) The Age of Access: how the shift from ownership to access is transforming modern life. Penguin: London
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment