The Ethical Dilemma Of The P2p Service

This paper is an analytical essay on global ethical issues on peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing. A history and background of peer-to-peer file-sharing will be given, as well as how it became an issue. This paper will explore what aspects of file-sharing are ethical and at what point it becomes unethical. An explanation of the laws will be described and whether the laws different from region-to-region around the world. The paper will include personal experiences with file sharing, as well as an in-depth analysis on the topic with high-quality industry and academic references to defend a particular moral/ethical position.

For a given ethical dilemma, there is usually a dominant pair. Frequently, more than one must be considered, and sometimes all four. But, as Kidder

Throughout our Communication Studies, we have examined the capitalist economy through a critical lens and as a result, corporations always appear at the forefront of debate, blame, and power. From a neo-liberalist economic standpoint, the typical “prosumer” is encouraged to create consumer-generated content, but what happens when you put your creative labour to the test? York University consistently advocates, “this is your time”; in other words, students are responsible for their own success and are held liable for any failures or mishaps they may endure. While contemporary technologies have multiplied and democratized opportunities for musical creativity, intellectual property law has been used to repress our right to free speech, which is guaranteed under the first amendment (Demers 2006). Therefore, the industry’s effort at convincing people that file-sharing is equivalent to thievery have turned an increasing number of artists into intellectual property activists.

Another Philosophy that can be used in evaluating the ethics of is Deontology which is judging an action based on societal norms in place already. Copyright laws have been around well before technology and they have protected intellectual property as well as the rights of musicians. With the music piracy risk evolving as technology has the copyright laws have as well still stating that the reproduction or sharing of music files is unlawful. “Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act gives the owner of copyright in original musical works, the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to: To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords; To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; To perform the work publicly.” (Digmedia) So since there has always been an established idea that what someone else produces is their property and can only be obtained with a contract and under certain stipulations of usage therefore Deontology would agree this is ethically

Thus the former is morally culpable for the actions of the latter by virtue of being the cause of the action. Opponents of consequentialism argue that negative responsibility, and the consequentialist doctrine as a whole, is unacceptable because it reduces an agent to merely “a locus of causal intervention in the world.” Instead of being people, agents are no more than origin points of cause and effect, and their integrity is forfeit as a result. Although Williams dedicates a significant portion of his paper to illustrating the problem of integrity, he offers no defense against it. In fact, he acknowledges that life-defining projects and integrity exist, agrees that it is absurd to expect an agent to discard them in order to be moral, and then departs from the problem of integrity without further discussion.

Since its beginnings, the recording industry has suffered from behavior that ranges from the unethical to worse – downright corrupt. Artists have had their music stolen, royalties shorted, and have been lied to about the potential for riches and fame. In addition, record labels have tried to take shortcuts to profitability through scams, fraud and even bribery. Two ethical issues continue to persist within the industry. The first ethical issue is Payola, the practice of a compensating a media outlet, such as a radio or TV station, for playing an artist’s work by the artist’s record label. The second issue is illegal sampling, the practice of taking pieces of an artist’s music, without proper permission, in order to create a new song by another musician. We have seen both issues rear their heads in the last 5 years and they may plague the industry in perpetuity.

People from all walks of life face many ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas have consequences. Our worldview determines how we deal with these dilemmas, and guides us to the right decisions. In this essay, I will examine an ethical issues through my Christian worldview. I will also present other viewpoints, and compare them to mine.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ethical problem that file sharing software creates when used to transfer copy written material. It is contested that the very existence of this software promotes piracy. The paper will focus on the creators of the file sharing software, knowing that the user employs their product illegally. The software creators (Kazaa, Grokster, Morpheus, etc) are claiming that they cannot control what the end user does with its product. In fact, this point has been upheld by a recent court ruling.

Since the music industry is quite diverse it is consequently impacted by a great number of ethical issues. The issues span across the production side to the consumptions side of music. They issues deal with things as inconsequential as lip syncing to the breaking of laws when stealing music. Although there are a lot of different areas that can be examined within the industry, the most important ethical issues fall under the category of compensation.

Producers of musical content cannot undo the adverse effects that piracy has had on the industry. Because of the internet and the way individuals have manipulated it to obtain music, many people are unwilling to change their habits. Here lies the issue between the producer and the consumer. Acts like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) work against the incentive of many consumers by telling them that they cannot do what maximizes their utility. Producers are thus working against the likings of the consumer. This is wrong.

About 5 years ago Napster, a network software application, was being used to download music files. The network was growing faster than anybody who ever started it would have imagined. When artists, songwriters, and all of the other people involved in making CD's realized that this wasn't going to slow down any time soon, they decided that they needed to stop Napster. Little by little, Napster was being less used and it became harder to find the songs wanted until nobody used it anymore. When all of this was happening, other applications were made available. Kazaa and Grokster are probably the two most used Peer to Peer, or P2P file sharing networks you can find, although there are many others.

We all know that downloading pirated music and films is illegal, but what exactly is it? The term piracy refers to the copying and selling of music, films and other media illegally; in other words you are copying and selling copyrighted media without the permission of the original owner (NiDirect, n.d.). With the massive growth of the internet and its ability to store and capture vast amounts of data, we have become much more reliable on information systems in all aspects of life, but it does not come without the risk of information technology being used unethically. With the number of IT breakthroughs in recent years “the importance of ethics and human values has been underemphasised” often resulting in various consequences. Not surprisingly one of the many public concerns about the ethical use of IT is that “millions of people have downloaded music and movies at no charge and in apparent violation of copyright laws at tremendous expense to the owners of those copyrights” (Reynolds, Ethics in Information Technology, 2015). This essay covers the ethical issues of downloading pirated music and films and the impact it has on music corporations and recording and film companies.

The ethical teachings and values of utilitarianism and Christian ethics are similar in some aspects, yet however are diverse in others. Utilitarianism is a generally teleological ethical system, where the outcome is said to justify the act. The act is considered ‘good’ if it brings about the greatest good for the greatest number. Christian Ethics, however, can be quite different. Many aspects of its ethics are deontological, for example, the Decalogue and Natural Law. There are other differences and indeed some similarities which will be considered throughout this essay.

4.Ofcourse, music companies share a moral responsibility for what has happened. The main goal of this music companies is their profit from the music that they produce but it seems that they don’t see any benefit from this happening. Many people would prefer to spend their money on something else instead of purchasing pricey music unless they are fans. Fans won’t exist if the artist weren’t popular and artists wouldn’t be popular if there were no fans. There is no difference at all for a fan who bought an album of an artist and a fan who downloaded the artist music in the internet. Both are still fans who made the artist known. Technology like Napster did change the music industry both in a good way and a bad way. Let’s face it, nothing in this world is perfectly good or perfectly bad. Everything has its own bad and good side. Good because like what I just said, people who are thrifty or cautious of purchasing music may have a option to download it and listen to it for free and in this way, it is easily shared to anybody unlike physical albums. Not everybody visits the music store frequently. It’s bad side is it is very accessible to everybody like some music may contain harsh words which may influence the youth who downloads the music from the website and also physical album sales

How can traditional (or old media) enterprises such as film, television and music overcome the threat of online piracy and file sharing?