Digital+natives+and+piracy

Digital Natives and Piracy



Music Piracy
Whether we are a digital native or a digital immigrant it probably would not take most of us very long to find someone we know who has downloaded either software, video games, movies or music illegally. It is especially hard on the music industry,in a survey conducted by Hertfordshire University it showed that a staggering 95% of people aged 18-24 years has pirated music before. It was also noted that in that same age group they carry around with them roughly 750 Euros of unpaid music on their MP3 players, that is over $1000. What is more of a problem is that students do not seem to think that they are dong anything wrong. A Barna Research group study points out ath "fewer than 1 in 10 teenagers believes that music piracy is morally wrong."

I think that schools and teachers should be doing their part to curb this behaviour and attempt to shift their way of thinking to see that downloading and file sharing material that you have not paid for is morally wrong, illegal and simply disrespectful to the person or persons who created that material. Some people believe that music piracy is a victimless crime, but it does take some money out of someone's pocket. We would not let a student keep stolen property in their lockers obviously because it is wrong. However, students can walk around with their iPods and have hundreds of dollars of pirated music, movies and television shows on them.

The astronomical figures of the losses in some industries points directly at pirated material. In 2009, the music industry recorded a nearly two billion dollar loss from the $17.5 bililon in sales from the year before. We must be form on piracy in schools, we prepare students for so many things but this grey area is an issue schools should take a stand on.

Canada is now taking a stand against piracy and as recently as October 1st, 2011 Canada signed an international anti-piracy agreement.Internaional Trade Minister Ed Fast again notes the signifiicant losses that affect certain industries and now Canada will do their part to curb these losses. There is no way to forecast how much this will help but this agreement also includes several other countries along with United States, Japan and Australia.