Macbook Case

Many months ago my brand new MacBook crashed out of nowhere. I had no idea what happened to it and what had caused it to crash. I then realized, after taking it to the IT guy that it had crashed due to a virus from a downloaded application. I had been downloading music, movies, and apps from Limewire for years. I had probably downloaded over 5,000 songs, 30 movies, and multiple applications. Many people do not realize how bad downloading illegal music, movies, or applications can be until something happens. Illegal downloading of music, movies, and applications need to be stopped so that the people making it will not lose any more money sense we are stealing from them.

The crash of my computer made me realize that Limewire, Bearshare, Frostwire, and other peer-to-peer network programs could leave you in terrible tragedy. I researched about illegal piracy when my computer crashed and found out that the most common problem with piracy is college students. The RIAA, which is The Recording Industry Association of America, is cracking down on college students downloading illegal on their campuses. According to a news article dated back in 2007 the RIAA sent out 405 letters to 23 major institutions to college students to let them know that a copyright infringement suit is coming towards them. (RIAA) So with that in mind, piracy of anything is very popular with college students and needs to be stopped. If you do not stop downloading illegally then many people can lose money. You may get sued and lose money yourself, but the people who you are stealing from will also lose money.

Downloading illegal things is extremely easy and you can do it anywhere. Limewire for example, is a simple peer-to-peer network that the person using it can take anybodies music or movies that they have in their shared folder and vies versa. There is probably only a chance of getting caught like the chance at winning the lottery, so everyone continues to do it. People like me say, that it is wrong to download illegally, but if my computer did not crash I would still be an addicted downloader. It is much easier to sit at a computer desk and click "download", than to go out to a store, buy a CD, come back home, rip the CD to the computer, rename all the songs, and then finally put it on my iPod.

If we continue to download illegally many people could get in trouble by the law. They could also have their computer crash and may not be as lucky as I was to have the IT guy at Liberty restore my computer and keep my files. The people who make the music and movies deserve to be paid for what they have done. If we continue to disrespect them and download illegally they may stop making the music and movies, then what are we going to do? Just some food for thought.

Many people do not realize what they are getting into when they download music off of Limewire or any other peer-to-peer network. They need to be informed of how dangerous it could be to them.