It starts in November 2003, The Pirate Bay is created. During the span of five years, there were many flips and turns that they went through. People were suing, the police raided the site and detained three men, and other stuff like being charged with copyrighting. But what file sharing site isn’t?
“It’s just so much easier getting music from a file sharing source because who is going to spend a dollar on a three minute song,” said a Junior, “If it’s just one song I will buy it, but if I am doing more than that, it just adds up to be too much.”
January 2nd, 2009, The Pirate Bay trial begins. Charging four Pirate Bay staff of helping people break copyright laws by just creating the Pirate Bay site.
April 17th, 2009, all four of the Pirate Bay staff members are convicted and sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of 3.6 million dollars. Even though the creators are going to jail and have a huge fine, they are still convinced, without a doubt, that the site will be up and running until they no longer want any part in it anymore. And with the help of 22 million users a month, there is no way that it can be shut down permanently.
“I download music off of The Pirate Bay, but if I download a song that I really like, I go the the band’s web site and donate 10 or 20 bucks,” said a Senior, “or however the amount of which I think that they deserve.”
With these millions of people downloading music, only a few hundred are arrested and fined each year. First time offenders are charged a maximum of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Society doesn’t seem to care about the consequences or the penalties for just downloading their favorite songs.
“Around 95 percent of all music is downloaded without payment to artists or producers,” John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in his 2009 Digital Music Report said.
With all the producers and singer/songwriters in the world who get their music ripped off are losing too much money. They spend their own time and money to make something where the age group that they are trying to present it to will like and enjoy it. And we either don’t care or just take it from torrent sites just because it’s easier.
“I don’t feel bad when I just download one song every other week, but when I have a list I just buy a iTunes gift card,” said a Freshman. “I feel really bad when I think about what I’m taking and how hard the artist(s) and the producer(s) worked on their music.”
What is society willing to give up? Thousands of dollars? Years away from family and friends due to jail time? For just $0.99 on iTunes or risk getting it online for free illegally. The risk of getting caught is very slim, but what if you were the one out of the millions who gets caught?
