Morality and Piracy
Saturday, October 10, 2009 by jayjay
October 10, 2009, by jayjay
I think that when it comes to downloading "free" content from the internet, there is a large lack of moral deliberation. In other words, its difficult to think of downloading from the net in terms of right and wrong when a click of a button is all that seperates you from having it or not having it. I think Yar's suggestion of the intangibility of digital products is rather valid since rather than depriving someone of a product, a copy is simply made, without much thought into the financial ramifications of the content's dispersal. Furthermore, i think we tend to judge the immorality of an act in terms of how we feel others around us approach that particular act and since everyone appears to be nonchalantly going around and downloading content, then what kind of moral dilemma are we suppose to be feeling?
yar states that copyright industries suggest it is youth and their lack of morality or association with deliquency that heavily contributes to the prevalence of piracy. Yet funnily enough, this group that have the finger pointed towards them, and whom of which the music industry claim to have the biggest impact through their "immoral" practices of piracy, are also the industry's biggest target market. So I think in a way its hard to sympathsize with industries that earn obscene amounts of money (way more than the music artists with whom they suggest piracy victimizes) when such large corporations are so easily associated with the Marxist position in their attempts to promote piracy awareness.
I think that when it comes to downloading "free" content from the internet, there is a large lack of moral deliberation. In other words, its difficult to think of downloading from the net in terms of right and wrong when a click of a button is all that seperates you from having it or not having it. I think Yar's suggestion of the intangibility of digital products is rather valid since rather than depriving someone of a product, a copy is simply made, without much thought into the financial ramifications of the content's dispersal. Furthermore, i think we tend to judge the immorality of an act in terms of how we feel others around us approach that particular act and since everyone appears to be nonchalantly going around and downloading content, then what kind of moral dilemma are we suppose to be feeling?
yar states that copyright industries suggest it is youth and their lack of morality or association with deliquency that heavily contributes to the prevalence of piracy. Yet funnily enough, this group that have the finger pointed towards them, and whom of which the music industry claim to have the biggest impact through their "immoral" practices of piracy, are also the industry's biggest target market. So I think in a way its hard to sympathsize with industries that earn obscene amounts of money (way more than the music artists with whom they suggest piracy victimizes) when such large corporations are so easily associated with the Marxist position in their attempts to promote piracy awareness.