Copyright Issues

Anyone who is a music fan or Internet user knows all about the battle the Internet is waging over copyright laws. There are people online who set up peer-to-peer sharing programs that allow users to download each other’s content for free. The catch is that this content is often copyrighted, and not up for sharing amongst many people with the proper company given credit and paid. These Internet user try and take off the virtual price tags so the songs, movies, and just media in general can be downloaded and enjoyed for free by the masses.

While this may seem great for the public who are getting all sorts of media and other things for free, the companies that are unknowingly supplying the media are not as overjoyed. Views have been inharmonious; the public loves free things and the companies want money for their productions.

Although it is noble and philanthropic to want to give all of these things away for free to your fellow man, these people are breaking the law. The question is, what are lawmakers going to do about this crime that is highly undetectable and even harder to prosecute?

They have proposed using copyright filters. This will stop any piece of information that is copyrighted from being transferred from one computer to another from doing as such. While it seems like a good plan, some people are less than convinced, and they have some solid points to back them up.

For one, they argue that even the most well designed and programmed servers will have some flaws and can unrightfully block legitimate stuff, while censoring perfectly fine content. This could interrupt traffic on the Internet, and possibly cause some blocks that could threaten this technological marvel that sustains our economy today.

Secondly, they feel this practice could lead to an online arms race. Whenever some virus protection program comes out with new software to protect its customers, hackers and identity thieves will then race to uncover some way to get around it. They feel the same will happen here, and that a diligent and resourceful hacker will keep them running forever, and that would get quite expensive.

Lastly, they say it would probably violate the Electronic Communications and Privacy Act. If this program was to be ratified and put into function, it would require every little piece of information that was sent through the Internet to be scanned, and that sounds like it would create some privacy issues.

If you are going download content, try using a change IP proxy and then your IP address will be hidden and replaced with the one of the change IP proxy server.  While we certainly do not recommend breaking the law, it’s possible to download copyrighted material by accident.  So protect yourself by changing your IP address to an anonymous one.

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