Assignment 11: How is piracy hurting the case for copyright online?

Piracy has become a major issue for the music industry, the film industry, as well as other industries. People have found ways around paying high prices for the music they listen to or for the movies they want to watch. I think the amount of money that is asked of consumers is too much and creates a system where consumers are asked to give more money than they can afford. I believe it has become easier to watch free content online or download it to any device you want and essentially this is what people want. They do not want to buy every song they want to listen to but rather choose from a wide selection at a low or no cost. Pual Tassi believes we will never get rid of piracy. In his article, “You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You”, he states, “ They still believe people are going to want to buy DVDs or Blu-rays in five years, and that a movie ticket is well worth $15. Netflix is the closest thing they have to an advocate, but the studios are trying to drive them out of business as they see them as a threat, not a solution. It’s mind boggling.” I believe that if the prices for movies or music went down more people would be encouraged to buy it. However, streaming services do provide a place where you can download all the music you want for a fee so streaming services do offer some relief. I think of piracy as a way for people to enjoy creativity while defying the overpriced and ridiculous system that is in place that expects consumers to pay absurd  amounts of money just so a singer or an actress can be paid millions of dollars. If they were paid less, then we would not be required to pay so much for what they create. As Tassi writes, “Perhaps A-list actors do not need multi-multi-million dollar salaries when there are thousands of hardworking amateurs trying to get noticed.” I think that people in the entertainment industry get paid too much money and its insulting to people of lower classes that those jobs are worth more. People do not need millions to live but in a capitalistic society many people do dream of having it all possible. I do believe that if a more effective way of downloading content were available at a lower cost more people would gravitate towards that approach in every industry instead of expecting regular people to pay a lot of money in order to sustain a money hungry system.

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