Can We Do It Any Other Way?

Where does it start and where does it stop? Where can we limit the power of the government where must the government allow its citizens to work things out on their own? How can a government already swamped with the task of ridding themselves of trillions of pounds of sludge possibly take on the daunting task of tracking the file sharing of millions of songs, books, and movies alike? The truth: it is out of their control. Yes, copyright laws exist for a reason and yes, people exploit them, but the undeniable truth is that if a change is made to the system, then unimaginable new problems will be faced, and the original problem could possibly be the least of the government's worries. The copyright laws in place today are not perfect, but they are undoubtedly the lesser of two evils.

We live in a world where the news we hear and digest is usually negative – someone has died, someone has been hurt, something has been destroyed. In the same light, file sharing has not destroyed the music and entertainment industry as the media likes to advertise. Does every kid listen to music they did not pay for and watch movies that they do not own? No, they do not. The industry itself has realized that these things exist and has created innovative ways to create incentive for consumers to ethically enjoy entertaining information without having to pay the sometimes lofty prices that paid-for songs especially can add up to be. Take Netflix for example. The company creates an affordable and reliable network of movies and TV shows to a broad audience for a small fee every month. By doing this, they offer the consumer the ability to “take the high road” rather than get drawn into the very alluring illegal file sharing industry. The best part about Netflix's particular innovation: they did it WITHOUT the government's help! Industry, as it always has in the United States, overcomes all obstacles to create profitable business for itself and useful services to its customers. Copyright was initially produced to create incentive for creativity and innovation in the country, and, although most people claim that this creativity has been hampered, Netflix is a key example of how copyrights continue to encourage creativity. At first there were movie rental stores, then On Demand, and now a company has taken advantage of the most useful resource to humanity: the Internet. In the grand scheme of things, as talked about in the U.S News article, the author of a best-selling novel is well protected by the copyright laws, and as I see it, people as a whole do not want to break laws in order to obtain entertainment, but they will do so if given the option of wasting money on songs or getting free and easy music illegally.

Works Cited

Ross, Patrick. “Copyright Laws Work Well Against Illegal File Sharing, Also Called Online Theft.” Editorial. U.S. News. U.S. News and World Report, 22 Dec. 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2012.