music piracy: a moral battleground

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  • 7/30/2019 Music Piracy: A Moral Battleground

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    Music Piracy:A Moral Battleground

    Justin Ahles

    ENC 3331

    Thomas Wright

    November 13, 2012

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    Ahles 2

    Virtual Piracy is the unauthorized use of anothers production, invention or

    conception (typically involving copyright infringement).

    Websters Dictionary

    Tackling Virtual PiracyApproach

    My approach, in the simplest form, is an appeal to ethos. In my video I

    will be performing a song called I Wont Give Up - Jason Mraz. My reasoning for

    choosing this song is that I will only have to change a few words (staying genuine to

    the song). During the video I will have cleanly transitioned photographs of

    musicians (on a local scale) that piracy effects as well as a small quote from any of

    the pictured musicians who wish to comment. My approach to spreading this

    material will be an ironic one; Im going to place the song on YouTube, with a free

    download link. Incorporated into the small tweaks I make to the lyrics will be some

    of my researched ideas and statistics. Throughout the verses, Ill be disbursing

    lesser-known information about piracy directly to an audience that may see no

    wrong in it; the information being heard will be directly related to the images Im

    compiling of local musicians all-struggling for work. My approach will not be a

    condemning one (Shame on you!), but rather an approach to enlightening (Did you

    know?).

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    Largely my approach will include information that is well spread over all

    three major appeals in rhetoric. Its not hard to say my entire assignment in itself an

    appeal to ethos in that Im covering the moral foreground of stealing. In order to

    clarify my ethos related assignment, I will be using both pathos and logos in

    making my case. As mentioned before, there are many statistics (too many to

    include in my assignment) that represent the hardships both economically (revenue,

    taxes, etc.) as well as emotionally (as people suffer lost jobs, lawsuits, prison time,

    etc.).

    Audience

    When formulating my action I was truly forced to examine the psyche of my

    audience. Firstly I was forced to recognize that my colleagues and I make up more

    than 90% of the music being stolen from the internet (ages 15-21); making this

    topic all the more relevant to those I fraternize with daily. Interestingly enough, in

    our same age group, less than 1 in every 10 people interviewed failed to see any

    moral shortcoming from illegally downloading music. (Barna Group, 2011) I am

    hoping to develop a sense of understanding in those individuals to see that this is

    not a victimless crime.

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    Evolution of Piracy

    Another aspect I needed to understand was that Piracy has quickly changed

    in the last 20 years. Piracy in its most recent form (Media Piracy) fell on to the music

    industry in 1991it did not however become a plaguing epidemic until 1998. In

    1998 the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was passed.

    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing) DMCA implemented two separate

    treaties from 1996 that were geared towards criminalizing production and

    distribution of devices, services or technologies. This was an early attempt to

    heighten the penalties for distributing copyrighted materials. Essentially the DMCA

    held individuals liable for either directly handling copyrighted material or for

    indirectly hosting such material online.

    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act)

    My action against Music Piracy is based almost entirely around my audience.

    Theres not much that can be changed with a wag of the finger to my audience. A

    negative approach is not normally the strongest routemore effectively, I want to

    expel the disassociation my audience feels to committing a theft. There was a string

    of commercials I found strongly effective that came out about 2 years back (played

    most frequently in movie theaters) that showed someone breaking a cars window to

    steal their radio. Then a voice over states, You wouldnt break into and steal from

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Acthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Acthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Acthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Acthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing
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    someones carPiracy is Stealing. These commercials were very effective for me

    because they rid you of the barrier between the product and those your stealing

    from. Its easy to ignore the connection between a free song and the artist suffering

    for itmy plan is to associate these two in the audiences mind. If you take one, you

    hurt the other so to speak.

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