Legal & Ethical Issues of Music, Video File Downloading & Spyware

Downloading Music

Legal Issues
Ethical Issues
In Canada, for example, downloading copyright music from peer-to-peer networks is legal. Canada has a private copying levy, which grants the right to make personal, non-commercial copies of sound recordings. Canada has imposed fees on recording mediums like blank CDs and similar items. These fees are used to fund musicians and songwriters for revenues lost due to consumer copying. For this reason, you do not see huge fines and court cases regarding illegally copied music in Canada, like you see in the U.S.A. A recent Supreme Court decision ruled that the law was written in such a way that music players were exempt from the initial tax on mp3 players.(1)
Downloading music illegally can create some issues ethically mostly for the artists. The artists that produce songs, own their music. Ethically people believe that they should get paid for their work. The other problem faced by artists is that their job is one that implies creativity and expression. Therefore if anyone asks to be paid for their work then they're "selling out". This is not very fair for the artists. Some people cannot afford the price of buying music which is understandable. However, not being able to afford something doesn't automatically entitle someone to steal it.(2)
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Downloading Videos

Legal Issues
Ethical Issues
It is legal to download a video from YouTube for personal use. Downloading for different reasons such as, avoiding video-streaming quality and avoiding advertising is also legal. However, while doing that, one might think it is okay to download commercially available videos for free but media companies put piracy and copyright protection as they are not willing to just give away their goods for free.(3)

Downloading YouTube videos is legal. However, it is immoral and so not ethical. Considering the fact that lots of creators on YouTube rely on their source of income through the advertisements they display on their videos. You are depriving the original owner of money they could have potentially made which is just morally and ethically wrong.

Spyware

Spyware is basically spying a software. It is when someone runs unnoticely in the background of a user in order to collect information, passwords, and other valuable data. Stealing personal information and then selling it to solicitors is identity theft. (4)

Legal Issues
Ethical Issues

Computer users who download software that contains spyware without reading the fine detail may not be so sure about spyware on their files, and the law is currently not definitive on this matter. This is the main legal issue regarding Spyware. This is because users are not sure but are caught in something they did not know about.

Spying on someone else's software is jusr like stalking them. Stealing personal information, passwords and other information is just wrong. Selling the information to solicitors is even worse. It is basically an identity theft, which is so ethically wrong for one to do.

Bibliography

  1. Posted December 22, 2004 By Vangie Beal. (n.d.). When Is Downloading Music on the Internet Illegal? Retrieved January 31, 2018, from www.webopedia.com
  2. ETHICS: Piracy- the ethics of downloading illegally. (2013, February 06). Retrieved January 31, 2018, from historyschipwrapper.wordpress.com
  3. Black, M. (2018, January 23). Is it legal to download YouTube video? Retrieved January 31, 2018, from www.techadvisor.co.uk
  4. Spyware and Legal Issues. (n.d.). Retrieved January 31, 2018, from www.bullguard.com

Questions

  1. What is a legal issue of downloading music?
  2. What is an ethical issue of downloading a video from YouTube?
  3. What is Spyware?
    4. answers