the epidemic

The Internet users are the last major group that is affected by music piracy.
consumer claim that CD’s are of low quality and concerts are expensive. On the contrary,
the consumer still pay for ” music downloads have climbed over 150 percent as of July
2004, new figures reveal. In fact, 35 per cent of US down loaders aged 12 or more had
paid to download a song - 150 per cent more than in late 2003 - or "roughly 20 million
US residents". 2 This is stating that more people are buying music compared to last year's
statistics. So is the Entertainment Industry overreacting? The Entertainment company
argues that they are not overreacting because their "...Business ... has been crippled by
illegal downloads. (News team)
The impact on the general public is great. As a result of the above conflicts with
music piracy some solutions must be explored, in order to solve the problem of music
piracy.
Therefore, the audio home recording act could be the end of music piracy. The
RIAA has proposed this act to congress and if it passes, there is a heavy chance that many
Internet users may protest.
The persons most hurt would be the consumers and Internet users. Once again,
they feel their voices and concerns would go unheard. This solution only benefits one
side and lives the other cripple. The consumer/Internet users are being used; it is as if
they have no rights. The reason why piracy exists is that the consumer feels that the
product is too expensive for low quality. The piracy act will not regain the publics love it
will take some time and effect in order to satisfy the internet user. This is exactly hoe
many consumers and Internet users feel.
Already there has been some protesting including a website called,
Dontbuycds.org; which is a private organization urging Internet users to stop buying
CD’s because the entertainment industries “actions violate our rights…In addition to
these things the retail price of compact discs continues to skyrocket as the cost to
manufacture disc comes down. They have shut down the original file trading service,
Napster and seek to stop all online file trading…they have colluded to fix prices in
violation of anti-trust laws”(don’t buy CDs). This is just one of the many websites that
protest this act and order others to do the same.