New Media and Stealing Handbags

We all at one point have seen the anti-piracy advertisements on dvds. In these adds, copying of dvds is likened to such things as stealing handbags and cars. While these advertisements are focused specifically on pirating movies, the same school of thought applies to music. With new media innovations such as the internet and cd writers, it has become easy to pirate music by copying cds as well as disseminating copyrighted material over the internet.

Napster (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/napster.htm) is the most widely known facet of this topic. Basically, the original Napster was created as a means for people to transfer their own band's intellectual property and disseminate their own music. However, people used this service in order to share copyrighted material and pirate music. Many recording artists such as Lars Ulrich (of Metallica claim) did not appreciate this and sought to sue the creator of Napster. Because of this huge media backlash, Napster was forced to shut down.

This was one victory in the quest to protect intellectual property but sadly, barely dented the world of piracy. Just do a google search of an album you want with the term "torrent" on the end of the album/artist name and you will see what I mean.

Quote of the day (from South Park Season 10 Episode 5): "Meet Lars Ulrich. Lars wants to have a gold-plated shark tank bar installed next to his pool, but because of scum like you pirating his music, he must now wait a few months!"