I remember a time around the late 90's when I lived for one band and one band only. METALLICA!!! I was in 9th grade and all I wanted to do was listen to it a loud as I could and convert all my friends into Metallifans or whatever it used to be called. I had all their cd's and concert performances on DVD. I was a real fan.
I mean, just look at the following picture. Is there anything cooler in the world back in 1999? They were god's I tell you!
Shortly after that sometime when I went to boarding school and we had computers in our rooms in 1999 my fellow cadets and I discovered a way to install Napster onto our computers. This thing was sick for 1999-2000. We found some holes on the firewall settings of the school and began downloading MASSIVE amounts of music onto our laptops. Just about any band out there ever. You wanted to listen to them. Cool, download a song. You loved their song. Cool, download every song from their album. After paying back then about $15 to $20 for a CD and having the income of a broke 18 year old this was awesome! What I loved best was that instead of buying an entire CD with one to three good songs and eight crappy songs I never listened to I know had control to pick what I wanted to listen to and for FREE.99!!! Napster and Winamp was a match made in heaven. Let's not forget you could also download movies, TV shows, anything as long as it was a file!
Shortly after that the floodgates were sealed at my school and super intense firewalls were placed. We all asked why and diligently tried to resolve the firewall situation. Soon after a mass email was sent to all the students at the academy stating that if anyone was caught downloading music or using the Napster software they would be expelled from the school. As a rebellious teen and new cadet in a military school I was furious and listened to Metallica in order to deal with my rage. Little did I know....
Then this happened....
My heroes decided to sue me, take all my money and send me to jail for straight up loving their music and head banging as I do it... Needless to say I was heart broken. Lars Ulrich became the voice and face of the entire music industry in one of the greatest lawsuits of all time against Napster. Soon after Napster lost the case and it went down. File sharing became illegal and people were facing serious jail time for it. What hurt me the most was apart from being my heroes was that I already owned all their dvd's and cd's. After reading about this I gave my Metallica collection away and decided never to listen to them ever again. I have kept true to this and would rather listen to Miley Cyrus a million times over, full volume and windows down in my truck before putting Metallica on.
I'm using this example of how shockingly our lives changed in 1999-2000 with the creation and later lawsuit vs Napster and many private citizens. We are all familiar with multiple other ways to share files that try to walk a thin line with what is legally acceptable and what isn't legally acceptable according Mr. Ulrich and the courts decide.
Let's move forward to 2011. We have all sorts of companies that have the right to distribute music via software which include iTunes (Apple Music Sale Market), Microsoft Media Player and Amazon. Just recently iTunes acquired the rights to sell music from the Beatles. But still, at the cost of about $.99 per song up to $1.99 I'm still not motivated to purchase any songs online. (Apple Pricing for Songs) If you were to purchase Abbey Road by the Beatles that you can only listen to where iTunes lets you listen to it would cost you $12.99. (Beatles Music on iTunes) Due to this people are still reluctant to go back to buying music at premium prices. This has created a plethora of other online file sharing software applications that whenever one gets shut down by the government 20 more pop out from nowhere in cyberspace.
What the recording industry needs to do is start selling their albums for reasonable prices at maybe pennies per song because $2.00 is way to much and it only promotes piracy.
As for the governments role as to regulating file sharing more and more every day is just plain crazy. I remember having a friend being escorted of campus in college in 2002 after she downloaded 1 CD. She had FBI Agents knock on her door, handcuff her and take her to jail. Over a crappy album like Backtreet Boys or something. Luckily that is all she downloaded because the amount of money in fines per songs its just outrageous. With so many more terrible crimes being committed in our country with far less consequences than that of software piracy we have to ask ourselves where the allegiance of the government is in terms of this. Obviously the recording industry must have lobbyist for this as much as oil companies do.
I really don't see file sharing stopping any time soon nor do I see the government easing up on controlling the flow of files and information over the internet. With the internet being what it is... Who made the United States Government the big Internet Police??? (Interesting Stats on what is being pirated on the internet) I've lived abroad and have seen friends who download anything they want onto their computers in terms of files and software without anything ever happening to them. See, the internet is not as regulated in the majority of the world as it is here in the United States and a few select other countries. In China where knock offs are a normal part of everyday life they have a knock off version of Google (Goojje Google Clone) and Facebook (Renren Facebook Clone). Not only that, but you can share files like champions where software, music and movies are free. Why pay when you can get things for free? It's part of international culture and international governments are not doing as much as Uncle Sam Internet Police Force.
What I'm trying to say is that I understand why Mr. Ulrich, Uncle Sam and friends might be as angry as they are and see why they have taken the actions they have taken. But just how much is too much and are we at the verge of seeing a government that will regulate our entire online file sharing activities? The government has come to a point where it is starting to monitor and regulate what little kids eat at school. (The Government Food Police) The government wants to place taxes on cheeseburgers and pizza (in other words anything unhealthy but o so darn tasty!) Just how far will the government go? If they are willing to tax me on my cheeseburger and pizza consumption I wouldn't be surprised to the rise of an Internet Police kind of organization funded by the U.S. Government and its tax payers.
Heck, we might even get to the point where before sending any file over the internet or storing it on a "Cloud" we might have to get the approval of the Internet Police in order to send it out. And like anything run like by the government.... ehem.... (The Postal Service)..... It's very slow and inefficient. So the internet might go from file sharing at the speed of wow to the speed of first class U.S. Mail.
Of course I'm exaggerating a little but the evidence is there. The government wants to regulate the internet and the flow of online information more and more every day and I'm seriously peeved by having been put on a "Government Watch List" after going onto the Limewire website for research purposes in a class. That's a bit much for a little school research.
In summation, the government is overstepping its boundaries a little with this. Also, it's up to Mr. Ulrich and the recording industry to think of better ways to want us to purchase that music again without imposing massive restrictions on us.
