I still think the Internet should be allowed to continue to thrive in a copyright-free world. If copyright was enforced heavily, we wouldn't have had sites like Youtube or Reddit or Tumblr.
I think many people have forgotten the purpose of copyright. Ultimately the people decide what is lawful and what is not in a country, by electing their representatives (at least in theory). So the point of copyright was that "we the people" would make it so the creators get some protection for their works, so we can encourage more creation in the world. But I think we forget that protecting the works is a means to an end - not the ultimate goal itself.
There are a lot of "creations" out there that are based on other people's previous work, just like there are a lot of technological inventions that are based on other people's works, too. This is how the world actually works. We build upon each other's works. Yes there should be some sort of protection. No, there shouldn't be supreme protection to protect the works at all cost and for decades at a time. Otherwise the society itself loses, and it defeats the purpose of why the copyright (and patent) laws were created in the first place.
We should stop taking whatever MPAA and RIAA say at face value. They aren't really looking to save the society's culture and creations. They want maximum protection for the works they control, because they want to increase their own revenues as companies. And they want to keep their current business model.
In the end the Internet is a disruption to them, just like it is for many other businesses. We should let that disruption happen without getting the Government involved to stop it from happening. Plus, there have been studies that have shown piracy is a service problem.
Think of the Hulu example. Would the networks really want to switch to the Hulu model, and lose their traditional business? No of course not. But that doesn't mean Hulu-like services are not the future. So the networks can either get fully behind Hulu, or their viewers will eventually move completely to other services online.
The piracy "problem" for music and movies is a lot like that, too. Either the labels move fully behind new types of services like Spotify and so on, and allow them to profitable, too, or they can continue to be greedy, and charge the maximum revenue they can from them, and also stop any new such initiatives that they think would lower their revenue even further.
Even if they somehow manage to "stop online piracy sites". That doesn't mean they will actually stop piracy. First, because like others have said, people will develop new tools to circumvent their restrictions, and second because people will just rip DVD's and so on in the real world, and pass them along to friends. So blocking some sites online still won't stop the fundamental problem, that piracy happens because people no longer want to pay $1 for every song they want to listen to.
People don't want to pay period. That doesn't mean we should accept this fact and just let the whole world take, take, take with impunity. At some point you have to make sure people who create things can benefit from it. It doesn't mean they're entitled to a living, but certainly nobody is entitled to their creations for free, and trying to educate, prevent and enforce copyright is important to artists, while protecting the rights of people to take products that they have not paid for is not important at all.
I think many people have forgotten the purpose of copyright. Ultimately the people decide what is lawful and what is not in a country, by electing their representatives (at least in theory). So the point of copyright was that "we the people" would make it so the creators get some protection for their works, so we can encourage more creation in the world. But I think we forget that protecting the works is a means to an end - not the ultimate goal itself.
There are a lot of "creations" out there that are based on other people's previous work, just like there are a lot of technological inventions that are based on other people's works, too. This is how the world actually works. We build upon each other's works. Yes there should be some sort of protection. No, there shouldn't be supreme protection to protect the works at all cost and for decades at a time. Otherwise the society itself loses, and it defeats the purpose of why the copyright (and patent) laws were created in the first place.
We should stop taking whatever MPAA and RIAA say at face value. They aren't really looking to save the society's culture and creations. They want maximum protection for the works they control, because they want to increase their own revenues as companies. And they want to keep their current business model.
In the end the Internet is a disruption to them, just like it is for many other businesses. We should let that disruption happen without getting the Government involved to stop it from happening. Plus, there have been studies that have shown piracy is a service problem.
Think of the Hulu example. Would the networks really want to switch to the Hulu model, and lose their traditional business? No of course not. But that doesn't mean Hulu-like services are not the future. So the networks can either get fully behind Hulu, or their viewers will eventually move completely to other services online.
The piracy "problem" for music and movies is a lot like that, too. Either the labels move fully behind new types of services like Spotify and so on, and allow them to profitable, too, or they can continue to be greedy, and charge the maximum revenue they can from them, and also stop any new such initiatives that they think would lower their revenue even further.
Even if they somehow manage to "stop online piracy sites". That doesn't mean they will actually stop piracy. First, because like others have said, people will develop new tools to circumvent their restrictions, and second because people will just rip DVD's and so on in the real world, and pass them along to friends. So blocking some sites online still won't stop the fundamental problem, that piracy happens because people no longer want to pay $1 for every song they want to listen to.