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Media piracy should be decriminalized
06
Ross Lubratovic @RossThaBoss93
Most college students enjoy spending their free time watching Netflix,seeing movies, discovering new music or some similar activity. However, in a time when there is an abundance of excellent content to consume, paying for all of it can cause financial dilemmas or limit students' experiences.
Pirating media is an alternative that many people have turned to in the recent past to cut costs when
consuming content. As a victimless crime with little to no negative side-effects, media piracy needs to be legalized or at least decriminalized.
Media piracy, which is defined as the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention or trademarked product, is becoming more common; however, it is still punishable by law in the United States and many countries around the world.
Many studies, including one by JRC Technical Reports from 2013 have found that "illegal music downloads have little or no effect on legal digital sales." In other words, digital piracy does not negatively affect sales.
In between seasons two and three of HBO's popular series "Game of Thrones," which is notorious for online piracy, the company's programming president Michael Lombardo was quoted as saying, in relation to the large amount of episodes being pirated, "...it is a compliment of sorts ... [Piracy is] something that comes along with having a wildly successful show on a subscription network."
With multiple recent shutdowns of The Pirate Bay, a site dedicated to downloading and uploading content for free, and the imprisonment of its founder Peter Sunde last year, as well as the protests of the SOPA and PIPA bills in 2012, media piracy continues to be an important issue right now, especially among younger demographics.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America website, "criminal [piracy] charges may leave you with a felony record, accompanied by up to five years of jail time and fines up to $250,000."
That means in some states it is simply a misdemeanor, or possibly even legal, to be in possession of marijuana, but if you copy a DVD for a friend you could end up with a criminal record. It's time for America to get its priorities straight and spend taxpayer money fighting real crimes.
A handful of countries, including Canada, Poland, the Netherlands and Spain permit downloads for personal noncommercial use. America needs to follow-suit in this matter not only because there are better things to spend money fighting, but because it is the right thing to do.
Ross Lubratovic is a senior from Overland Park studying creative writing.
College classes need to start later in the morning
Jessica Gomez
@jessicataylurr
exhausted, stressed and oftentimes buzzed on coffee.
Not all college students are like this, but most of my friends, as well as myself, fit that description pretty well. Between school, work and the campus activities that college students take part in, it seems impossible to find time for ourselves or even have a regular sleep schedule. To help eliminate this sleep deprivation, classes should start, at the earliest, at 9 a.m.
Common characteristics of a typical college student:
For the most part, college allows students to pick their classes and the time these classes take place. This is helpful for people who aren't so into "getting the worm" as the early birds are. On the other hand, there are times when the class we need to advance to the next semester is at 8 a.m. and we have no choice.
To no fault of our own, we will be called out for not being as alert as we should be in that morning class.
If that class were to start later, we could take in the information without constant yawning and fear of being taunted for having no control over our exhaustion.
Jessica Gomez is a senior from Baldwin City majoring in journalism and global studies.
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