File Sharing Websites on the Run and What it Means for the People

At one point, it looked as if piracy on the internet could never be controlled but with recent legislation being passed around the world by different governments, especially the United States, file sharing websites that had always provided people opportunity
to access unlimited amounts of content are on the run.

With the recent closures of one of the biggest names in the industry, Megaupload, a number of other websites within the same category have begun eliminating their file sharing services had have limited their business to only single user file uploading and
downloading.

For many companies around the world, especially the movie, software, gaming and music industry, this is certainly a blessing as the amount of pirated content will go down to a minimum as pirates around the internet struggle to continue sharing and accessing
illegal content.

Major countries like the USA will benefit, while the people of smaller nations will drastically be affected by the limitations forced upon them in the form of laws and strict action being taken against such websites.

What most people do not realise is that not all people want to download movies, games and other things off of the internet just for the fun of it, but are rather forced to do so since they cannot afford the genuine material.

Like in a country such as Pakistan, buying an original piece of software would mean spending somewhere near Rs.2000, all the way up to Rs. 12,000, and where the minimum wage pay for a person and a fair majority of the population is Rs.8,000 per month, thinking
about buying something for that much is totally out of the question.

There was a time in the past when Bill Gates came to India and was shocked to see the amount of piracy going on in the country and tried to push the government towards eliminating it, but the fact he did not realise was that such products are way out of
the reach of a common man in these countries.

Personally speaking, I would love to buy original software, purchase genuine movie DVDs and getting the latest games without having  to download them, but the fact remains that all of my income would go towards that and that is certainly not practical.

We all remember Napster and what a huge success it was back in the day since it was the pioneer of file sharing and literally was the base of all future such programs but shutting it down with brute force only led to other developments in the piracy business.

What legislation around the world must realise is that they cannot shut these websites down and expect people to just stop pirating material all at once, but a number of steps should be taken to allow people to actually buy the content.

Pricing the material according to the local economy is the only practical way of minimising piracy and even though it may sound out of the question to manufacturers, it is the best thing to do if they are focused on getting the profit for their work.

In the end, we all know that these things cannot be stopped totally and censoring the internet is just another way of oppressing the people which, by studying such steps taken in the past, is destined to fail one way or another. 

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=11835

Posted by Syed Hassan Bokhari on Feb 6 2012. Filed under Editorial, Opinion, Pakistan, USA, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry