Duplication in the Digital Age

"Earlier generations of technology, including the photocopying machine and audio tape recorders, have presented challenges to existing copyright law, but none have posed the same threat as the digital age. Earlier technologies, although they may have sometimes made copying copyrighted material possible, they did not have the copying advantages of digital technologies, which make instantaneous mass copying of exact duplicates on an international scale a matter as simple as pressing the �enter' key."�

This quote, by John Pavlik, exemplifies the questions and lawsuits being raised in this digital age concerning the copyrighting of digital music. Copyright law has always been an issue with every evolving form of technology; however, the Internet gives music pirates a whole new outlet on which to get free music. Despite all the laws being made and precautions taken, I believe that copyrighting digital music will not keep people from pirating.�

There are several main points that lead me to believe this. First of all, there has been a rise in the development of anti-piracy software. While this may slowly make it more difficult for people to freely download music, I don't believe it will completely eliminate pirating on the Internet. Secondly, despite the shutdown of Napster, there are still a large number of shareware companies in existence on the Internet. While these companies share the same idea as Napster, they were not subject to lawsuits. Other shareware companies I will discuss in this paper include those that are fee services. Their idea is to make people pay for what they download; essentially making people pay the rights to the music they listen to. I don't think this idea will work, because the more new software like this that is developed, the more of a challenge it is for hackers to break the system and therefore continue to get songs for free. Finally, I will discuss pirating of music as a plus, and how providing such downloads free of charge is good for the music industry.