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Didn’t your mommy teach you NOT to share?
Every year, billions of files are "stolen" and tons of money lost because of websites. Photo by J.N. Rosepapa
Written by J.N. Rosepapa- Arts & Entertainment Editor
Technology, mankind’s greatest invention, has dramatically changed the lifestyle, perspective, and attitude of Americans as the generations have progressed. We live in a liberal era that capitalizes on free ride and instant gratification. The Internet, in particular file sharing, has led to many capitalizing on greed, which is stimulated from an attitude of decreasing productivity in creativity and wastefulness. This attitude may stem from the advancement of technology, though this is hardly my point, it brings up the issue of “why should we pay for the arts when they are available in massive amounts in the billions with just a click of the mouse?” The answer is simply that we live in a liberal era, and America’s ideology states, “what is free and easily obtainable shouldn’t be paid for”. Junior, Justin Downing illustrates this attitude in his response on file sharing, “Most high school students don’t have the money to pay for music or movies off i tunes due to increasing financial instability, since file sharing makes music more available and convenient, we use that.” File sharing affects more than just musicians and film directors; it undermines the originality of small business owners and artists. To give an example of the damaging effects of file sharing, Chris Rosepapa, a small business owner and full time artist, stated this, “Is file sharing and image/ art taking from the Internet stealing? Some believe so, and others believe if it is not tangible, then its not, however, I believe copyright infringement is theft, if you use it, or promote your business with it- pay for it.”
What many fail to recognize is that any profession dealing with the arts requires a large amount of personal investment, which requires an excess of thousands of dollars of investment, and countless hours going into the project. It seems capitalism is non-existent in the industry, due to our incredulous views that we should crucify the strong and empower the weak, which once again, has developed from our liberal views. Our society is run on conformity, and the arts (as a whole) is the one industry that supports making a difference and uniqueness, which is the greatest challenge towards the divinity of our society.
Folk musician Bob Dylan stated well over forty years ago that “The times are-a changing”, we can expect that in another forty years the arts will be an irrelevant way to earn a living. What one can perceive is that file sharing is the first step towards a world-wide mental and economic depression amongst the artistic community, which will result in a lot of truly unique individuals not only losing their income, but their freedom of expression also.
March 28th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Well said! I will definitely put more thought into what I decide to “cut and paste” and then take credit for, on the internet. I didn’t earn the right to take credit for someone else’s work. Yes that is Liberalism at its best