Music

Janet Adeola Songonuga

Grade:12; Columbia High School

Age: 17

The Legality, Morality & Business Impact of Sharing of Music and Videos

We live in a social class leveled country, because of that we have extreme poverty as well as extreme wealth. Luckily the extremely wealthy can afford most of the things in the world, but the extremely poor, what are they supposed to do? The poor or less fortunates have made a way to live the high life the cheap way. As you go across America you see places like Chinatown where you can find almost any FAKE designer purse, sunglasses, wallet, clothing, sneakers, and many others sold for extremely low prices; you see places all over cities where people have bootlegs of every movie and music CDs to sell to the world. If these towns can sell these illegal items on a daily base especially when the act is too big to shut down, can you expect the file sharing over the internet producing unlawful copying to be completely regulated even if scrutinized carefully? The answer is No. I think files sharing over the internet should not be regulated carefully or prohibited.

Obviously people who took the time out to create sharing computer software’s like Limewire and BearShare, had in mind people who could not afford to buy CDs or people who wanted certain songs off an album. It would be waste of time in my option to eat down and try to take down all the sites that provide illegal downloading. The laws deeming it unlawful is understandable but humans have the characteristics to work around the law. If cracked down on one, another one would pop up to replace its space. I have friend’s who use these sites to download music, and they have simply said to me I just want one or two songs off the album or I don’t have the money right now to purchase the album.

I don’t think it matters if file sharing activities is deemed lawful or not. People do it care freely and carelessly because clicking download if fairly easily. A couple years a go teens...