Copyright Law: Abolishing Restrictions on Music & Video Downloads

This essay examines the debate surrounding the abolishment of legal restrictions on downloading music and videos from the internet, particularly in light of the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015. It presents arguments against strict enforcement, highlighting that non-commercial downloads should not be considered theft and that blocking websites may not be effective due to the availability of alternative access points. The essay suggests that the high costs and delays associated with legal downloads drive users to piracy, and that reducing costs and increasing accessibility to legitimate content would be a more effective solution than imposing penalties on Internet Service Providers. It concludes that raising awareness about copyright infringement is a better approach than fines and website blocking.

THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROFESSIONAL - ASSESSMENT 4 –
COUNTERARGUMENT FROM DEBATE
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Legal restrictions on the downloading of music and videos from the internet should be abolished.............4
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
The topic of this section is that the government should abolish the legal restrictions on
downloading the music and video from the internet. This section contains the views and opinion
of the experts in the field regarding the issue of infringement of the rights of the copyright holder
and the demerits of the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015. The section also
provides the solution for resolving the issue related to the increasing cases of piracy and the
measures that can be taken to counter this issue.
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Legal restrictions on the downloading of music and videos from the internet should be
abolished.
This debate has been initiated because of implementation of new legislation, the Copyright
Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015, which aims at protecting the intellectual property
rights of the holder. The underlying concept of introducing such an amendment act is to stop the
illegal download of music and videos from the internet. This is done as part of the government’s
commitment towards fighting online piracy as there are regular instances of infringing
copyrights. As per this law, the Internet Service Providers will be forced to block the access to
overseas websites (Thomas, 2015).
However, the government should consider the purpose of downloading a video or movie since
the viewers do not sell these downloaded movies and the issue of breach of copyright occurs
only when the downloaded content is used for commercial purposes. Another argument for
restricting the download of the content from the internet is that piracy can only happen if the
copyright owner does not wish to make a copy of the original content, however, they sell these
copies and hence, downloading the content for domestic purposes is not stealing. Also, in case of
the Internet Service Providers block the pirated websites, its effectiveness is still not guaranteed
as there are numerous links that can be accessed for downloading music and videos. There is no
clear legislation that has been introduced that considers torrenting movies or videos illegal which
makes downloading the content common in Australia (Powell, 2014). The main reason for
downloading the videos or music outside of approved channels is the delays and additional costs
which have to be incurred by the people because of increase in the global entertainment
environment.
There are more effective ways of controlling the piracy and by enacting this legislation, the
Internet Service providers such as Telstra, Netflix, and others may charge a higher amount for
downloading the content. Hence, the issue can only be solved if the users are able to access the
websites and are charged normally. This reduces the users visiting pirated websites and use legal
ways of downloading the content. This will also help the Internet Service Providers to identify
potential pirate websites and they will be able to block the websites as the users may not avail the
internet services for blocking the websites. Hence, the government should take alternative
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measures such as creating awareness regarding the infringement of copyrights rather than
imposing fines and blocking the websites (Aufderheide and Davis, 2017).
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Conclusion
From this section, it can be concluded that it is very important to protect the copyright holders’
rights but it will not be prudent to introduce a legislation which imposes penalties on the Internet
Service Providers. This is because, there are numerous pirate websites which have not been
detected and hence, the users will always have the option of downloading the content from other
websites. Hence, the best possible ways are to minimise the costs of downloading the content
and increase the accessibility to the legitimate websites.
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References
 Aufderheide, P., and Davis, D.H., 2017. Contributors and Arguments in Australian
Policy Debates on Fair Use and Copyright: The Missing Discussion of the Creative
Process, International Journal of Communication, Vol. 11 (2017), pp. 522-545
 Powell, R., 2014. Downloading movies and TV is not a crime, [Online] The Sydney
Morning Herald, Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/technology/downloading-
movies-and-tv-is-not-a-crime-20141209-11uyie.html, [Accessed: 1 June 2018]
 Thomas, J., 2015. Australians who download movies and music without paying may need
to change their habits. What will Australia's new copyright law changes mean for you?,
[Online] SBS News, Available at: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/how-will-australia-s-
anti-piracy-law-affect-you, [Accessed: 1 June 2018]
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