Am I a digital thief?
Copyright law seems incredibly outdated. These days you can get movies, songs, books; pretty much any creative material for free via the web. Friends of mine download via BitTorrent, some choose to pay for songs through iTunes. Even the latest Harry Potter book was available on Scribd days after it’s release (Thanks to Will Richardson for pointing this out on his blog) I have never really been into downloading these type of media, it just seemed to complex and a little bit wrong. But it is getting increasingly easier and more frequent and my personal opinions are changing. Recently, I discovered online TV, it streams the TV shows I am interested in directly onto my computer. The quality is not the greatest, but it beats paying $70 for the latest season on Lost or Heroes, plus no commercials. As great as this is, I still have anixeity about it, am I stealing? Will these great shows stop being made if we all stop paying?
I justify it by paying my SaskTel Max service charges which entitle me to these shows for regular scheduled programming, but most often I can not be available for the regular scheduled programming. However, I do not subscribe to HBO, and they have the best shows and I admittedly have checked them out for free via the web. Should I go to jail? Who thinks this is stealing?
A friend of mine passed on this reasoning that he had heard from his priest. The priest, an avid downloader, said “If your neighbor was continually throwing whole, unwrapped chocolate bars over your fence would it be wrong to eat them? No. So why would it be wrong to take advantage of products sent to us through satellites and phone cords?” What a justification eh, and from a priest no less! If only it was that simple, the owners of this creative material are not simply throwing it over the fence, but others are grabbing it from them, like candy from a baby, and throwing it to us. It can be argued that creators of this material need to improve their avenues and methods or delivery to the public, but we, the public also need to demonstrate online morale by not taking advantage of these tools.
So the questions I leave you with are these. How do we develop this morale with our students when they see their friends and family downloading thousands of songs or the latest movie? How do we demonstrate proper use of technology without infringing on the ownership and hardwork of others?
All of this is making me feel a little… 
I can totally relate to your dilema Kyle. Although not to the same extent as I do not download television shows or movies, I can say that I have my fair share of ‘in theatre’ copies which have been passed onto me through a line of people who enjoy the ability to do this. After our discussions on copyright, I feel more confused then ever and can’t help but wonder if I am stealing everytime I use an image I’ve googled or ‘found’ on the internet.
Maybe this all got to me a bit too because yesterday, I went and bought two cds and I can honestly say I do not remember the last time I did that.
Good luck with your personal struggle…
Thanks Gillian. It is a struggle, but there is a balance and for everybody it is a little bit different. I realize that everybody involved in the entertainment industry is under siege by downloaders and freeloaders and some have taken steps to solve the problems. I don’t really think of this as stealing, because it is all out there albeit not as good of quality as on disc but it’s there. It is free and I can not always afford discs although I would much prefer to own copies, I simply can not afford it. In exchange I offer loads of free word of mouth publicity for the shows I watch, or the bands I listen to.
This isn’t and I don’t think it ever will be a cut and dry issue. We just have to teach best practices and digital citizenship to lead our students to make the right decisions for themselves.
I still believe it is OK in small doses. Downloading a couple of songs in MP3 format is OK to give you a taste of what the rest of the CD will be like. But Kyle you hit the nail on the head when you said that the TV shows you were downloading were not very good quality. That’s the truth for most downloaded media, that it’s not as good as the bought copy. Now I’ve been a musician all my life so I guess I can hear the difference, but trust me there is a difference. So if your content with crappy sound or video then download, but if you like the product and are not just going to throw it on a shelf to say you have it then go and purchase it. Brian Nenson