A nation of criminals?
Sunday, October 11, 2009 by Katie
After reading Yar and other opinions on the morals of illegal music downloads, there seems to be a common thought that online piracy is a catalyst for other more sinister behavior, something which I disagree with. Like a classmate mentioned, there is a big difference in downloading a music track and stealing the physical CD from a store. The latter is premeditated, involves risk and implies certain character or behavioral traits of the thief that leads them to physically steal the goods, hence petty theft often escalates to more serious crimes. However, since illegally downloading media arguably doesn't involve these elements it can hardly be seen as a crime, and therefore is unlikely to escalate to more serious situations.
In the post Psychology of Internet Music Piracy, on the website Not Evil Music Niklas Ramo says "It is hard for people to consider piracy as a real threat, because you can’t see the Internet pirates actually stealing anything tangible. Downloading an album is different from shoplifting, because online digital copies are “non-rivalrous” goods", to which I fully agree with.
Personally, I think that the fight against music piracy is fruitless, as like the tradition of making mix-tapes in the '90s, file-sharing and torrenting media has become a hobby for todays youth. People aren’t setting out to purposefully partake in illegal behavior, it’s just an activity that has become normalized in society, namely because of the lack of social stigma around it. If it has become so engrained in society, then it can hardly be argued that in every instance downloading media illegally can lead to more serious crimes, as if it was true then we would be dealing with a whole generation of criminals!
On a lighter note, here's a song by satirical musician Weird Al Yankovich on the effects of music piracy: