Piracy has become a major issue in the United States. For every motion picture that has been featured in theaters also has been pirated onto the Internet the next day, and for every new musical album that is released, yet there is a free torrent file of the album within the same hour. Even though these online pirates steal music and movies from other companies and make a drastic profit, yet these “rogue” websites receive 53 billions visits a year from across the globe according to Creative America. The persistence of the thieves that break copyright laws of the productions has lead the entertainment business to place a definitive complaint to the U.S. government of the constant notion of piracy. While the notion of piracy was not left unseen, yet the government plans to establish laws that will cripple the exploitation of information throughout every Internet service provider in the country. The movement of this bill is the Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act, or better known as PIPA/SOPA. Some citizens also know this act as the movement of Censorship in America. One of the main supporters of the Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act is the entertainment business such as movie and music companies. The motion picture industries believe that the Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act should be supported. Motion picture industries such as Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and other leaders in the industry believe the government will be causing an expedient amount of money flow within the country. U.S. Congress will also be saving jobs in the United States by enforcing this bill throughout the movie industry. About 60% of U.S. exports come from the entertainment industry, and usually generates about 33% of U.S. GDP... ... middle of paper ... ...l-become-law/>. Content Theft: The Big Picture. Www.vimeo.com. Creative America, 30 Nov. 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. Estes, Adam C. "The Web Collectively Protests Congress's Censorship Law - Technology." The Atlantic Wire. 16 Nov. 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. . "Internet Censorship: Anti-Piracy Group Blackmails ISPs to Censor The Pirate Bay." Web log post. Censorship in America. Ed. Sean. 5 Dec. 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. Mastnek, Mike. "Entertainment Industry Still Can't Get Grassroots Support For SOPA/PIPA, Resorts To Trying To Buy Support | Techdirt." Techdirt. 8 Dec. 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. .
Behind SOPA: Copyright, Censorship and Free speech At the beginning of 2012, a series of coordinated protests occurred online and offline against Stop Online Piracy Act Bill (SOPA) that expands U.S. law enforcement’s ability to combat online copyright infringement. As this protest involved many influential websites like Google and Wikipedia, it certainly draws national attention to SOPA. Whether censorship should be used online against online materials infringing property rights, as included in SOPA, is the controversial issue. Even though SOPA eventually was terminated by the Congress, the issues behind SOPA caused further debates.
Since this country was founded, we have had a set of unalienable rights that our constitution guarantees us to as Americans. One of the most important rights that is mentioned in our constitution is the right to free speech. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
National Coalition Against Censorship. National Coalition Against Censorship. Ed. NCAC. n.d. Web. April 22 2012.
As many users see P2P software as just file sharing, entertainment industries and other big companies see it as copyright infringement and stealing from copyright owners without their rightful authorization or compensation. These companies complain that P2P file sharing threatens the survival of the industries and believe that there should be a law passed to protect the livelihood of the copyright holders.
Censorship has been a big part of the world’s history and especially America’s history. One of the most quoted amendments to the United States constitution is the first amendment; “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ...” This amendment guaranteeing free speech, press, and religion is still heavily debated and contested today. Censorship, as a challenge to free speech and press has been allowed many times and has been heavily debated itself. Many people censor for many different reasons and in many different forms. Censorship itself is not always a bad thing and has in some cases been used for protection of the general population.
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." -- Harry S Truman
Naik, Abhijit. “Internet Censorship Pros and Cons.” Buzzle. Buzzle, 25 Nov. 2010. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. .
Censorship according to the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press can be defined as, “To remove anything offensive from books, films, etc., or to remove parts considered unsuitable from private letters, especially ones sent during war or from a prison”(Cambridge Dictionary). Censorship in the news and in the media takes many forms in todays fast paced world. Even with the slightly leak in information or even misleading information could cause todays world to be turned on its head and can cause people to interpret the issue in many ways which could have numerous implications. This is why such information is filtered by some governments around the world before it is aired or printed. There are countless arguments as to why or why not information should be censored as each individual is entitled to their own opinion. Censorship impacts people ability to choose freely as it is controls ideas and thoughts and thus influences their freedom of expression or their to express their views on issues, ideologies or even practice their faith.
Physical piracy-the copying and illegal sale of hard-copy CDs, videotapes, and DVDs-costs the music industry over $4 billion a year worldwide and the movie industry more than $3.5 billion. These numbers do not factor in the growing (and difficult to measure) problem of Internet piracy, in which music and movies are transferred to digital format and copies are made of the resulting computer file. Journalist Charles C. Mann explains why Internet piracy has the potential to be vastly more damaging to copyright industr...
Reitman, Rainey. " The Cost of Censorship in Libraries: 10 Years Under the Children’s Internet Protection Act." Electronic Frontier Foundation. Electronic Frontier Foundation, 4 Sept. 2013. Web.
Online piracy is a huge problem, one which costs the U.S. economy between $200 and $250 billion per year, and is responsible for the loss of 750,000 American jobs. These numbers seem huge: $250 billion per year loss would be almost $800 for every man, woman, and child in America. And 750,000 jobs – that’s twice the number of those employed in the entire motion picture industry in 2010 (Freakonomics). In 2010, the Government Accountability Office released a report noting that these figures “can be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology,” which in English means these figures are legitimate and that piracy really does hurt our economy.
Censorship affects our society in many different ways, it affects the music we listen to, the movies we watch, the books we read, and many other aspects of our everyday lives. Even though many might argue that censorship doesn't really have a place in a society that emphases freedom of speech and the freedom to express oneself, but censorship is an essential and needed part of our growing society, it's needed in the television industry, the Internet, and the music industry. Censorship helps to make our world a better place because it creates a better environment for us to live in.
Intellectual property rights are being broken as people are downloading free content through P2P (Peer 2 Peer) networks, and illegal websites online. Production companies can’t do anything about that because developers of this type of software can’t be blamed for what people share. And no one can track the people behind the illegal websites.
The industry basically works by selling and buying; however, if the sales decrease there is a huge impact in the economic growth of the firms. There are many factors, which can affect the growth of the firm. The factors that affect the firm do not have a great impact in their growth; nevertheless, a factor that has recently surged is the music piracy, and it has become a negative externality. A negative externality “occurs when a product or decision costs the society more than its private cost” . Music piracy makes the music market loose billions of dollars in the US and even though it doesn’t impact the economy on a big much it has a small impact such as the increase of unemployment per year.
At the dawn of the internet, many things such as books and text became obsolete, due to insufficient monitoring of internet activity and sites. Individuals were able to gain free access to books and publications that normally needed to be bought, or required a fee. This is something that has caused problems for booksellers and publishers. Now, as technology advances, it also begins the decline of music, software, and television industries—but something can be done before it’s too late. Illegal downloading is a problem that affects us all, either directly or indirectly. Many people do not take it too seriously. They have not realized that it is an epidemic; like a disease that keeps growing as people become more knowledgeable about computers and learn more about how software runs. People openly burn music CDs and download music and movies for friends who in turn give it to their friends; it’s a never-ending cycle on illegal practices. The problem started when Napster came out and should have ended when it was shutdown. Unfortunately, not enough has been done to stop the illegal transfer of files. It’s time someone takes full action and ends this detrimental offense.