English Paper – Piracy and StealingEssay Preview: English Paper – Piracy and StealingReport this essayPiracy has become an interesting ethical dispute over the past few years. Brian Lee, a customer who is dissatisfied with the quality of a computer game he had purchased at a major gaming company, is now seeking other alternatives for acquiring a computer game. Lee is optimistic about piracy and only sees weaknesses in the Digital Rights Management technology that controls access to digital material. He expresses his feelings through a message board and soon finds himself debating about this with a company representative. The company representative perceives piracy differently and sees piracy as another form of stealing. Therefore, examining the ethical aspects of piracy will only determine if it is morally acceptable.
Piracy and stealing have their similarities and differences. Their similarities are that they both result in getting something free of charge. The way piracy and stealing obtain music is different. For example, stealing from a record store would involve physically going to a record store, taking a CD off the shelf, and walking out of the store without paying for it.
This results in record stores losing money because of money they pay manufacturing companies to package, burn, and ship CDs into their store. With piracy, the pirate obtains the CD by accessing a file sharing website and downloading the CD for free that has already been purchased by someone else. From each free download, record stores are not losing money from manufacturing costs they incurred to bring the CD in their store. It could be argued that piracy amounts to lost sales because a pirate would be motivated to buy the CD if he couldnt download it. However, given that pirates look for cheaper alternatives to get the CD, it is unrealistic that every pirate would purchase a CD if it werent available on the Internet. Although everyones perspective of piracy is different, a majority would claim that it is unethical because its outcome is the same as stealing.
Todays generation of people is either in favour or against piracy. In the case, it is clear that Lee is in favour of piracy. Lee could argue that file sharing does not harm record stores. By downloading torrents on the Internet, record stores are not losing money from purchasing CDs from manufacturing companies. He could also argue that piracy is too large to regulate and monitor. Torrents have become so widely available and popular that authorities could not completely penalize everyone who downloads them. The company representative against piracy could argue that file sharing is illegal. Participating in piracy is a serious offense and can result in imprisonment or fines under the Canadian Criminal Law. The company representative could argue that increased piracy drives up price. Because the gaming companies are losing sales with more people downloading torrents than purchasing the game, customers who actually want to buy the game are now faced with an
fiercer dilemma. The Canadian Bar Association had a strong call for the government to ban piracy. Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all the rights and freedoms protected by the Charter are still relevant in connection with a licensed game.[citation needed] But that does not make it impossible for players to pirate. The Canadian Game Commission has stated in its recent report that the digital distribution system could be used by pirates to purchase digital content, but it does not rule out that a country may ban piracy, perhaps because of economic or political reasons. What does the Canadian Attorney General’s Office and Canadian Game Commission say about our own government’s position in respect of piracy? The Canadian Attorney General has stated that the information already published on file sharing websites would help to make it easier to pirate, but he says the information has not been properly studied.[4] That is because the information, which is already classified as a source document, is available in a “red file” — an encrypted folder, such as an Internet address. Although some of the information is classified as a source document, that is not enough to create a legal basis for copyright protection. That source document is therefore classified as only a “purchaseable” file, and there is no mechanism by which it can be used for infringing commercial purposes. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to define copyright as merely a source document. It is important for the CAG to focus on the fact that the legal position of the government is not in favour or against the development process of piracy, and to encourage further research and research into effective policies for dealing with the problem of pirate-friendly information. However, we know that the CAG has some questions (particularly from those concerned about security) and that there is little time for formal consultation and public discussion on the issue. Should the CAG recommend that the public make the difficult decision to pay extra for games such as Grand Theft Auto and Skyrim? There is no consensus among the CAG and Canadian Game Commission in favour of that recommendation. As explained in the CAG’s report:[5] The CAG does not recommend that the Canadian government adopt laws that prohibit downloading movies from file sharing platforms. But the CAG believes that the government would be better served by being more willing to take action to combat piracy, rather than using new and potentially harmful technology. The CAG believes that the current debate over download laws and legislation relating to file sharing cannot be resolved by one party being “one person in a large crowd”. Instead, a political, democratic debate should be conducted on this issue, which is important not only for the preservation of the copyright in video games, but to protect copyright in video game piracy. The current debate seems to have taken off by way of an election year result of the federal NDP. If anything, the situation suggests that the public needs to focus on piracy rather than seeking answers on the issue. The CAG recommends that the government make some legislative changes to crack down on piracy. Further, it supports the importance of providing legal advice to help prevent or stop the abuse of any copyright protection information on file sharing websites.
If people want to download movies in a way that helps preserve the copyrightable contents of their videos, they should have the means to do so.
I am going to be getting involved in this discussion but I have been thinking about it for some time and want to be constructive. When I mentioned it already, online games are very popular. But then a while ago it became clear that many people are really just interested in downloading those games, so I thought that maybe it would be possible to get involved in that discussion. I would like to start here from a personal point of view. My parents started a campaign for a boycott campaign against piracy, so I have a lot of respect for those campaigners. I came to watch several games from the game disc collection company Naxat the same month and it is well documented that piracy