Today's Pirates of the Web

     In today's age of technology, almost any form of media can be quickly accessed. From television shows to the news, we posses the means of instant media gratification. As these technologies have developed, the media industry has tried to keep up with their copyright laws and practices. But in an age where you can get any media for free, is this a viable option? Has the technology overcome the producers and music labels, allowing us to get all entertainment for free? Information piracy is at an all time high, and it might also be the downfall of multimedia giants.

     In the early 2000's, I remember sitting at my desk looking for music that i wanted to download. Back then, your choice of how to buy digital media was very limited. You could either purchase the songs and movies through iTunes, or purchase the CDs and upload them to your computer. There was also a third method at the time, Limewire. Limewire was a torrenting application that was first introduced in 2000. This new program allowed peer to peer file sharing, a way to illegally, but freely obtain digital media. These first days of piracy were littered with fake files and malware, making obtaining the files you wanted a challenge. Many a computers have gone the way of the past due to the clutter of malicious files that roamed Limewire. Although it ultimately was declared dead in 2010, Limewire opened the eyes to the public, showing that you didn't always have to give the media giants money for what you wanted. Although this was frowned upon due to breaking copyright laws, whats free is free if you can find a way.

      As time progressed forward from the early 2000's, many dedicated torrenting sites appeared across the internet. Sites that were dedicated to solely music or solely movies began to appear, driving out the malicious files as they began to specialize. Out was the days of cluttered junk torrents, in was the era of studio quality free media. As these sites got better at providing high quality free media, the high ups of the media giants began to take notice. Some analysts claim that $12.5 billion dollars is lost each year due to online piracy. This tremendous loss has caused the media industry to lobby against online piracy, claiming that the government should step in and instill some types of procedures to end online piracy. But to this is say, what if that was the end result? Why is the population downloading so much free media and not just paying for it? I believe it is because the inflated cost of multimedia and the decreased average income of our citizens. If we keep making less and less while the cost of everything else increases, why would we pay for something that we can obtain for free with almost zero immediate damage? I know that there are artists and producers that claim piracy is damaging them so badly that they are willing to lobby against it. But to this I say, unless we can fully support ourselves against this economic recession , we will not be paying ridiculous prices for something we can obtain for free .