Copyright Experience

Since my earliest experiences with the internet, I had always been aware of Copyright laws, but in the most part, chose to ignore them. When I was only 8 or 9 years old, I used to illegally download music and games from Napster. I had been told in school that downloading music on websites like napster was illegal and had always heard stories from friends who had friends who had friends who had gotten in trouble with the government and had to pay thousands of dollars in fines, but because I had never experience such punishments first hand, I completley ignored them. After Napster I moved on to Limewire and continued downloading music, videos, and games without paying. Later on after Limewire began making my computer run slower, I began file sharing off of applications like Mojo, where any users on the same network can transfer songs, videos, or pictures to one another through itunes.

In terms of the morality of what I am doing, I am deffinitley fully aware that I am stealing somebody elses property, and that it is wrong and illegal. This is especially a problem when it comes to illegally downloading movies as my family owns a chain of movie theatres and film piracy has led to major drops in the cinema market. At the same time, there is also a side of me that wants to simply state that if it is available on the internet for free, then there shouldnt be any punishment for viewing it, and that part of the responsibility and challenge of these media producers is to adopt to the online age and figure out ways to provide free media to audiences while still profiting off of advertisements, like Hulu, being able to pay off the media creators.