One of the many problems with
today’s accessibility to technology is stealing other peoples work for free. Why pay for an entire CD, when you just want
two songs and can download them for free?
Many people forget that downloading free music is illegal. Many people
feel that they are entitled to free music since many musicians are making
millions of dollars a year. Downloading illegal music is essentially like
stealing a CD from a store. Many people
however, don’t consider illegal downloading a type of theft.
Really what’s the damage in
downloading just one song? Kant’s
categorical imperative suggests that if everyone thought and acted upon it,
what would be the result? So basically
if everyone downloaded music illegally, what would happen to musicians and the music
industry? How would they make revenue?
Is illegal downloading really that wrong?
According to Sissela Bok, she described that the first step to do is to consult
your conscience and to seek alternatives. If your conscience is telling you “no
don’t do this” then listen to it. There are alternatives; most songs are only a
dollar to purchase legally, or have a friend make a CD of legal downloads, so
then you have the songs that you want legally.
Bok’s third step for ethical
decision making suggests that people should think about how their actions will
affect others. In the moment, people especially
adolescents are not thinking about how their illegal downloading could affect
the entire music industry; they are thinking “how can I get my music free and
fast.” Decision making grows with age; many adolescents are too immature and
naive to see consequences in their actions.
In conclusion, whether illegal
downloading is right or wrong, people will most likely never stop till they see
that it is a major problem. For the most
part, for anything to stop people need to realize that there is a problem and
that it is affecting others. Illegal downloading may seem like a minor concern
now, but who knows how this problem may snowball in the future.
