College students can usually be classified as either of two ways when it
comes to finances. They are either broke or have money and are too tight
to spend it. Of course there are they few who love to throw around money.
But these are people are just what I said, few. Whenever there exists away
to get something free we will by all means jump at it. It is human nature
to prefer the free to the costly. Usually when the weather is not
inclement there are credit card and/or other organizations with a table
along the walkway to the student center offering free gifts. All you have
to do to get, say a free T-shirt or Pez dispenser is to give away and
insane amount of information about yourself. They then use this
information to perform market analysis so that they can sell your name to
businesses that will then either call you or send you tons of mail asking
you to purchase crap you could care less about. My point is that most
people know this and yet they continue to sign away so that they can get
something free! Even though this author gets a kick out of annoying phone
solicitors he does not engage in such intrusive techniques for the sole
reason of something free. One reason that MP3 duplicates of copyrighted
material is so popular is because they are free. Also many people would
rather have just one song from a particular CD than buy the whole thing
for a certain song. But since the material that is typically available in
MP3 format is copyrighted, legal issues arise.
The recording industry is in an uproar against such distribution.
Especially interested in such activities is the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA) which represents nearly 90% of those
involved with the recording industry in the United States. The RIAA is
very adamant about protecting the interests of its members. As such, they
very vigorously and consistently fight piracy. The RIAA represent artists
and recording companies that see piracy as greatly affecting their profit
margin. These groups have right for concern since music is they way they
earn a living. Songs and CDs are the result of an artistes hard work and
they feel cheated whenever they see their work pirated. I am sure most
people would be angry if they found out they failed a class because their
homework was stolen and then they were accused of cheating because of this
fact. Intellectual property rights were created for the benefit of the
artists so they would not get the burnt end of the deal. People are so
angry at piracy because it hits them where it hurts, in the pocketbook.
There are those who argue that the recording industry and the artist have
enough money already. People are angry that it costs $18 to purchase a CD
of their favorite artists. College students especially are very interested
in music and are the main purchasers of CDs. But college students are also
usually the most in need of money. They have tuition to pay and books for
classes and there is rarely any money left over for leisure. Also when it
comes to concerts, it is usually the lower priced shows that are favored
by college students. I repeatedly here people tell me that $15 to go to a
concert is a rip off. Big name commercial artists are also guilty of
overcharging in the range of $20 - $30 for a performance. These big name
performers are usually millionaires and still overcharge because they know
people will pay it. Lesser know artists hold lower priced concerts for the
sole reason of attracting people to get interested in their music. Many
people feel that the artists owe something to their listeners. They feel
that the artist would be nowhere without the audience and as such should
try to make it easier for the audience to listen to their music. These
economic pressures cause many people to start up the task of copyright
infringement.
The MP3 audio format is significant because of the amount of compression
that it offers for audio information while maintaining superior quality.
Before it was in wide spread use, as it is today, high quality audio
recordings took up obscene amounts of space. Using the WAV format popular
on Windows computers, 1 minute of audio at CD quality sound (44.1 kHz)
takes of ten megabytes of disk space. Such a file converted to MP3 format
would take up 10-12 times less space. The sound quality of MP3 files is
not in the least affected; they sound true to the original. This is
because the format utilizes stereo effects and limits the bandwidth of the
sound information. It does so in such a way that the human ear can not
tell the difference, only a computer could "hear" the difference. Such
compression allows files to be sent faster over the Internet. Modem users
who would have not wasted their time on fifty megabytes sound files now
gladly trade MP3s with others. In fact modem users make up the majority of
users and distributors of copyrighted songs. The fact that their
connection is only temporary makes it hard to track them and prosecute.
On the other hand college students usually have high speed connections to
the Internet that are usually left on. Usually the students that download
MP3s set up servers on their own computers to allow others to download
from their collections. And then other people download from these
computers and set up sites of their own. It seems that it is fashionable
to have an MP3 site.
Downloading from the computers of others on the local network in the dorms
is not the only way in which MP3s are acquired. When most people visit MP3
sites they go looking for a specific song. Because of this fact search
engines that search many different MP3 sites were set up. Most likely
those who wanted an easier way to get their favorite songs set up these
search engines. There are many available and new ones spring up everyday
while others are either shut down or voluntarily closed. The most reliable
sites are those that are located in other countries that typically do not
care about U.S. copyrights. A funny thing to note is that some of these
search engines contained links to computers on Georgia Tech. Another less
popular method is the transfer of files on Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
There exist entire channels set up for the illegal transfer of MP3 music
files. All one has to do is go into the channel and then type a special
code to ask the different scripts running in the channel if they have a
certain file. The scripts then respond to the user and tell them the
result of their search. All the person has to do then is request the file
to be sent and wait on it to be downloaded. Such methods that make it so
easy to obtain MP3s are one reason that they are so distributed.
The solution to what to be done about MP3s is clear-cut to groups like
RIAA. To them stiff criminal penalties for people who have MP3s of
copyrighted material is the only answer. The actually MP3 format itself is
not the problem to them, just the use of it for the distribution of
copyrighted material. On the other side of the matter are the people who
have MP3s. Many of them claim that it is only a trial before they buy the
actual CD. Many simply listen to the song for a little while then delete
it. Others get really interested in an artist through such means and then
go on to purchase the actual CD. In this manner such MP3s can be viewed as
favorable. But the laws being passed are not so kind. Recently a law was
passed that makes the distribution of copyrighted material with out
gaining profit punishable by up to five year in federal prison. The
anti-piracy groups are steadily using their influence to make it legally
hard to get songs in digital format. But there is no way that they will
ever stop it. It is too widespread and easy to be controlled; the computer
industry knows this first hand in their battles against piracy. The next
millennium will see a battle for control of intellectual property, which
side will eventually win is a hard question to answer, but my bet is on
the pirates.