So often in college I hear students talking about how they just saw the latest movie or how they are watching the latest TV shows episode. They don’t have cable and they are too broke to be going to the movies all the time so how are they doing it? They are downloading illegally and they talk about it like its nothing.
The United States is one of the countries found in this infographic that has signed treaties attempting to protect intellectual property and copyrighted material. But there is still large numbers of people downloading. It’s like just like everything else, people hear about the horror stories and think it can’t happen to them. I’m sure the 15 year old in Sweden didn’t think he would be facing jail time and Joel Tenenbaum didn’t think he’d have to pay well over half-a-million for downloading 30 songs.
There are serious repercussions for acting in this fashion. 34 of the some of the world’s most developed countries are taking measures to safeguard copyrighted material. Many of these countries are signing multiple treaties. Enforcement is more difficult when you have signatories acting relaxed against perpetrators. One of those countries, I won’t say which, is the country most looked at for copyright infringement yet everyone talks about that country likes its awful.
If you are illegally downloading or uploading you are not helping the economy. You are harming the very industries that you are looking to for entertainment. You’re putting yourself in harms way. [via]
