Copyright laws

I had no idea copyrights lasted so long. However, it's easy to see why they need to be that way when a corporate icon like Mickey Mouse will soon be in the public domain. I believe that people should be able to profit from their creations without worrying that someone will either steal or manipulate their idea and take some market share. Our economy would be much different if copyright laws didn't exist.

Downloading music or movies has become very prevalent in society lately. I don't know anyone who hasn't downloaded a song or at least owned a song someone else downloaded. I was shocked that the RIAA predominately targets college students while they only constitute 4% of the total file sharing network. CDs have become increasingly expensive, and many people have decided that it is not worth $20 to buy a CD that is mostly filler songs. While I believe that file sharing has become accepted among society as more of a norm, it doesn' t make it ethical.

Essentially when you download a song, you're taking someone elses creation without paying for it. Although many musicians are rich it doesn't validate the fact that stealing is ok. Just because Apple makes millions of dollars selling iPods doesn't make it ok to steal one. Many alternatives have been created such as iTunes or Rhapsody which allow a used to download songs for only $1. Wal-Mart even has a website where certain songs cost 88 cents each. With these cheap alternatives, there is no reason to illegally download music.