The Internet, Moral Judgment and Respect :: Free Essays Online

The Internet, Moral Judgment and Respect The Internet has changed the way that many people go about their everyday lives. People are trading stocks, paying bills, checking weather reports, buying cars, and even lining up their Friday night dates via the Internet. It has certainly proved to be a convenient tool for many, but for some musicians it has created a void in their pocketbooks that may take some time to fill. Is the sharing of music files on the Internet our God given right, or is it a simple case of theft? As the 1990’s gave us Seinfeld, Grunge Rock, The Clinton Administration and the Macarena, they also introduced many people around the world to the Internet. The Internet allows clusters of computer networks to be linked together worldwide giving people the ability share information virtually anywhere. Among that shared information includes music files known as MP-3’s. The MP-3 ( MPEG Audio Layer 3) can squeeze a music file to a fraction of its original CD file size with only a slight loss of quality. [1] These files can be sent as attachments to e-mails and played back by the recipient just as if they were listening to the original recording. This seemed like a great way of distributing music over the Internet until a 19-year-old college freshman named Shawn Fanning released a computer program he had just written. He called it "Napster" -- his own nickname (apparently Fanning had issues with shampoo, so his hair was kind of . . . well, you know). [2] This site a llowed its users the ability to search for music and download it to their PC from any other user who happened to be logged on to that site. Imagine millions of files, readily available from your own home with the simple click of a mouse! You’ll never have to purchase another new CD again†¦or will you? Musicians and record companies around the world became growingly concerned with the drastic decline of album sales. How could copyrighted music created by an artist be taken and distributed without the permission of its owner? Isn’t this stealing? One would surely think that a department store would press charges if an individual were caught shoplifting CD’s. A musician makes his/her livelihood from the sale of their music the same way a store makes money from merchandise sales.