Reasons To Legalize File Sharing

[Baseballer02]

For an essay due next week, I need three reasons to legalize file sharing that could be legitimately presented in a court of law. I've already come up with one reason, so I guess that means I only need two.

Let me hear what everyone here has to say.

[eftda]

web md -> one of the greatest reasons for file sharing.

[Amazinz]

File sharing is legal except when you're sharing copyrighted material. So what exactly do you have to present to the court? Three reasons why the file sharing of copyrighted material should be legal?

[Baseballer02]

File sharing is legal except when you're sharing copyrighted material. So what exactly do you have to present to the court? Three reasons why the file sharing of copyrighted material should be legal?

Yep, that's basically it.

My sole reason right now is that there's many possibly ways to enforce costs of file sharing, and therefore allowing artists of music and videos to make money off filesharing.

[Amazinz]

Hrm... Well if you force people to start paying for it then it's no longer illegal file sharing. There wouldn't be any reason to legalize the illegal file sharing.

I've seen statistical evidence that shows that the music industry as a whole has actually seen growth since the whole file sharing culture. I'm not sure how valid the stats were and I don't know how easy it would be to show a correlation.

One of the best reasons I have heard is that because it is so difficult to prevent illegal file sharing that they would actually have to infringe about the peoples' rights in order to do it. By doing so they hinder the greatest benefit of the Internet which is the easy exchange of information.

[blankman]

So me and my 230 gigs of media don't get fined to death

[Tavish]

OMG, this almost an actual topic in the General Talk forum.

I hope that wasn't the topic assigned by the school, if so I would let the teacher know it is a BS assignment. If it was a topic you picked out you should seriously think about finding another one. There absouletely, positvely, without a doubt, ZERO reasons that could be presented legally that illegal file-sharing should be made legal.

[Viper8437]

OMG, this almost an actual topic in the General Talk forum.

I hope that wasn't the topic assigned by the school, if so I would let the teacher know it is a BS assignment. If it was a topic you picked out you should seriously think about finding another one. There absouletely, positvely, without a doubt, ZERO reasons that could be presented legally that illegal file-sharing should be made legal.

yea
youre basically screwed with that topic
no strong arguments

[LBJackal]

There is no way illegal filesharing should be legal. People like me who download tons of copyrighted material would like to think so, and I'm sure some "studies" and things have been done by people who need to justify what they're doing by thinking it's legal... but it's illegal any way you slice it. And until there's a deterrant to it, I'm not going to stop.

[Mookie4ever]

Criminalizing file sharing is just the way that we protect intellectual property - what you want is to come up with an an argument to support the proposition that there should not be intellectual property.

When you think about it, the term "intellectual property" seems pretty Orwellian. The concept that you can own an idea. That is what music, literature etc are - ideas. The argument behind intellectual property is that a person should be rewarded for their creative efforts. If you have spent a year of your life writing a book you should get paid when somebody reads it. You should get paid when somebody plays your song etc.

The reasoning behind that is that if you did not reward a person for their creative efforts then people would stop writing books and making music.

This is a very pessimistic view of humanity, a very capitalistic view, a very true view.

To argue that this should not be the case you could argue that mankind should not act this way - that we should essentially act altruistically. Argu that people should not be allowed to own ideas and that people should want to be creative for the unselfish purpose of wanting to contribute to society and make the world a better place.

By protecting ideas and criminalizing the free distribution of ideas, we are perpetuating the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a select group of people who have the wherewithall to create music and write books because they are privileged enough to attend institutes of higher learning where these skills are taught. The people that suffer in this system are those who would benefit the most from the free distribution of ideas: the workers and labourers.

etc. etc.

Disclaimer: I'm not a communist, I'm just Canadian.