I'm a regular reading of ypulse.com (a teen culture study web site) and thought this article they found very interesting. It seems that teens don't think that illegal downloading of music is a problem and even those who think it is wrong think that the punishment for getting caught downloading shouldn’t be to server (compared to shoplifting for example). Here is the starting line for the article: "Nearly half of all teenagers have no familiarity with copyright laws and don't feel that the same type of punishment is necessary for illegally downloading media from the Internet as other types of theft."
I decided to do a little research myself with my daughter and her basketball team friends (who happen to be over for a hot tub party). I asked them two questions:
1) How many of you download music off the internet? 4 out 5 said they did
2) How many of you would download music if it was free no matter where it came from? 4 out 5 said yes (one girl did say that she wouldn’t if it was a “crappy web site” that would put viruses on her computer).
Very interesting…
I did find this encouraging - "Half of those who said they understood the laws of the land reported that their parents were their main source of information on copyright infringement (65 percent for younger teens)..."
This is a really good read so have a look at it and then let me know what you think.
I decided to do a little research myself with my daughter and her basketball team friends (who happen to be over for a hot tub party). I asked them two questions:
1) How many of you download music off the internet? 4 out 5 said they did
2) How many of you would download music if it was free no matter where it came from? 4 out 5 said yes (one girl did say that she wouldn’t if it was a “crappy web site” that would put viruses on her computer).
Very interesting…
I did find this encouraging - "Half of those who said they understood the laws of the land reported that their parents were their main source of information on copyright infringement (65 percent for younger teens)..."
This is a really good read so have a look at it and then let me know what you think.
2 comments:
Interesting article. I have to admit that I used to download music for free in my younger years, but now I do it only through approved sites. Some music websites have songs that can be downloaded with the permission of the band (such as purevolume.com and some bands' myspace pages). However, I agree that there should be some punishment for illegal downloading.
Thx for commenting Thomas
but the real question is - should the punishment for this be as server as things like shoplifting? I’m not sure what is the best answer to this.
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