Downloading and the Vcr

Downloading and the V.C.R.

One of the hottest issues today, known as the 21st century legal battle by some, is the issue of downloading music, movies, and applications over the internet that are copyrighted, also known as pirating - it shouldn't be taken so harshly because it's already leading to technological breakthroughs. There is a bold line drawn on who is on which side, pretty much it's the industries verses the public. This issue has been battled in courts thousands of times, billion dollar music industries suing families, children, teens, elders, colleges, open-source software developers (like the popular LimeWire), and even a deceased woman.

The issue of piracy finally went to the US Supreme Court a few months ago, and surprisingly the Court Justices seemed to be leaning in favor of the downloader's. They brought up points many have never even though of, stating this case is identical to the one in 1984 where it was the movie industry verses Sony for one of the first V.C.R.'s. Which really made me think from a different perspective, the V.C.R. known for early pirating and copying of movies led to vast technological breakthroughs on it's own, such as the CD, and then the DVD.

A few months back a lot of people got a laugh when they saw on the news that one of the music industries had actually pressed charges against a 90 year old woman for downloading a few music files, who died a few months before the charges came up.

In the beginning of the numerous charges against people who downloaded music, it was exploited by the music industry, suing children as young as 8 year olds and charging their families with a very unreasonable amount of money - then offering to let go of the charges if they were allowed to appear in a commercial. That commercial aired during the super bowl before last, where the kids simply say "I downloaded music" and are holding a Pepsi, I believe it was a joint iTunes-Pepsi commercial. I was very surprised while watching the super bowl to see someone I went to high school with holding a Pepsi on a commercial, and then I found out that he was forced to do it.

On the other side the music industry did start offering a contract that if they agreed to have their computers wiped and would swear never to download an illegal file again they would drop the charges, however this often was a little too strict because they would have to sign a release allowing audits and sometimes taps of their home computers faster than you can say invasion of privacy.

The punishments and pursuing of illegal downloader's shouldn't be so harsh,