The Law has finally started to catch up with technology and it could prove to be very costly to you if your kids illegally download music and play pirated games. With technology today, it is so easy to copy media and just hand it out. Kids trade them at school and can reproduce video games on their laptops. The corporations are finally catching up and using their full legal powers to prosecute anybody they can get and make an example out of them.
Most often kids are the ones who exchange and create the illegal copies. Being able to obtain a copy of a CD from a friend for free is much simpler than paying for it. When it comes down to it taking something without properly paying for it is stealing. It may only be hurting companies that make billions but it does set a moral conduct that should not be allowed. Try to monitor what they are listening to and verify that they are legal copies. It will take many weeks, years and decades worth of allowance to pay back the steep fines and penalties.
A woman was prosecuted for copyright infringement and was fined $1.9 million for downloading 24 songs (that’s $80,000 each) by various artists. There are currently appeals in process but the fact that the record companies are pursuing a 32 year-old woman from Minnesota sends a clear message that anyone who has obtained media illegally will be dealt with. You, as the parent, are responsible for what your kid does on your computer and if they download music illegally it could cost you big time.
When a copy of the upcoming game Halo 3: ODST was leaked onto the internet and was briefly available for illegal download, Microsoft released a statement (via Twitter) that anyone caught playing the game on Xbox Live will be permanently banned from the service and will face prosecution for copyright infringement. While that may not mean much to the average Xbox user, someone who plays a lot knows that Xbox Live opens up gateways to entire new gaming experiences and lose of that service could cause some gamers to cry. In the game Batman: Arkham Asylum, anybody who was playing an illegally obtained copy would fall victim to a bug that was placed in the game by programmers. Gamers would not be able to perform a a flying maneuver in the game and would always fall and die. These are the easy ways that they are dealing with the problem though. Technology has allowed them to easier track down who is playing these copies and they could very well be knocking on doors in the future.
Video games and music are a hot item on the black market. Games that generally go for $60 can be downloaded or copied and then played for less than $5. Big businesses are losing out on billions of dollars and they, of course, don’t want that. So they hire legal teams, software engineers and other staff to specifically stop the spread of piracy. This is just the beginning though, as more and more companies gear up their legal teams to combat piracy, the fines and penalties will only increase. As the precedents are set, companies will be more inclined to go after everyone.
A good rule of thumb to go by is “If you didn’t pay for it, it is illegal.” There are always exceptions to the rule, but sticking to that is a good way to stay in the clear and out of the courtroom.
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