Torrenting Ethics

        In an increasingly tech savvy world more and more ways to break the law from behind the comfort of a computer screen are brought to our fingertips. No longer are the sneaky tactics of spiriting away novels or movies from the local library needed with the advent of easy to use torrenting. Today with the click of a button someone can steal a movie or book and have it accessible before guilt even sets in. It’s a crazy environment to be a creator of media and it calls in a lot of questions on the ethics of it.

       For example if I buy a book I of course am supporting the creator, I receive the book and the creators my money, the traditional way of the relationship. However with torrenting I may supercede the paying bit and just get the book benefitting only me. One theory put out there is that if a content consumer enjoys the content enough they will want to help the author and buy the book after “demoing” it via torrenting. In this sense it may even see like a more fair way to conduct business. Of course there's the scenario that if I steal a movie and watch it, why would I then go ahead and buy it when I can just as easily move on and forget about it.

       Many governments have tried addressing these problems with the prosecution of website owners promoting the torrenting of material or hosting the material itself. The argument however, “You wouldn’t steal a car” doesn’t quite speak to the situation. A car is tangible whereas the movie files for Adam Sandler’s latest comedy flop are multitudes. It creates an interesting moral debate as well as a legal one, and when paired with the ideology that Adam Sandler doesn’t need any more money someone would surely find it not the least bit morally compromising to lift those files for free from the internet and enjoy them, rent free.

       I think the political and ethical intrigue surrounding torrents and such things are very interesting and create a new debate for the new age of technology that will have to be tackled in the coming years. It's certainly a whole new world that we are not accustomed to or fully familiar with and so we will have to delve into it and adjust as needed.