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Digital Piracy
Our leaders are trying to cut down on digital piracy. There are people who use computers to obtain music and movies that they have no right to. They do this for a variety of reasons -- To preview the music or movie before buying it, because they cannot afford it, or simply because they prefer to steal rather than own legally.
The problem is our leaders are not targeting the actual criminal, the person who unlawfully downloads material they have to rights to, rather they are targeting the persons who make this material available for download.
You can go into any store and buy an MP3 player. If you want to play music that you have on CD, tape, or vinyl records you first have to convert it to an MP3 format and then download it into your player.
Well anybody with a computer and a CD-ROM drive can do this. Those of us who have tapes or vinyl records have a more difficult time. Peer-to-Peer networks like Kazaa and (now defunct) Napster, allowed those with music not readily convertable to MP3 format to obtain digital copies of the songs they had rights to. Yet the laws and the courts have targeted and are targeting these companies simply because people can also 'pirate' music from them.
Shall we prosecute Wal-Mart and Sears because people can steal from them? Do we prosecute a theater manager because some persons find ways to sneak in and watch a movie without paying?
No we do not! We prosecute the actual criminal. Kazaa's and Napster's only 'crime' is that there is no effective way to ensure that a person has a license to a song before they download it. What will happen? Will we destroy the MP3 player industry, disallow responsible, upright citizens from downloading MP3 files, simply because a few bad apples 'pirate' a few songs.
Tell your Congressperson to enact laws that target the criminal rather than those who's lawfull activities make a crime possible.
Amen