Core 2010 Essay 2

Crown Core course Essay 2 An ethical question Due 10/8 Tim Fitzmaurice

For next Friday (10/8) write a four-page essay on the ethical dilemmas of downloading. I expect four quotes from our Reader. The goal of ethical living is important to our personal & social lives. As Hinman said,

Our search is a personal one, a search for wisdom. But it is also a social approach, one that seeks to discern how to live a good life with other people, how to live well together in a community.

In other words, we cannot stop with ourselves when imagining an ethical life. We must develop something that makes sense for everyone and that serves everyone equally.
We have an absolute rule against stealing, but is that the last word in deciding whether something like downloading is wrong? Hinman also said, ‘Absolutists are unable to make sense out of the fact that sometimes we have genuine moral disagreements among well-informed and good intentioned people …”(Reader) The moral /ethical principles must be carefully described to make this essay work. Is it a question of virtue or utilitarianism rights, or human flourishing, an absolute or relative notion?
Is downloading just plain wrong or is there a space for disagreement between people? What ethical systems in our reader explain the point of view of those opposed to downloading illegally and those who defend it. Our essays offer reasons for the unethical or the ethical use of downloading of music? You have to use your imagination to apply them. But just to show you the value of looking at the other sources I have provided here’s a quote on the positive view of downloading by an artist. Janis Ian writes:

The NARAS (National Association of Recording Arts And Sciences) people were a bit more pushy. They told me downloads were "destroying sales", "ruining the music industry", and "costing you money". Costing me money? I don't pretend to be an expert on intellectual property law, but I do know one thing. If a music industry executive claims I should agree with their agenda because it will make me more money, I put my hand on my wallet...and check it after they leave, just to make sure nothing's missing.
Am I suspicious of all this hysteria? You bet. Do I think the issue has been badly
handled? Absolutely. Am I concerned about losing friends, opportunities, the possibility
of gaining my 10th Grammy nomination by publishing this article? Yeah. I am. But
sometimes things are just wrong, and when they're that wrong, they have to be addressed.
The premise of all this ballyhoo is that the industry (and its artists) are being
harmed by free downloading.
Nonsense. Let's take it from my personal experience. My site www.janisian.com
gets an average of 75, 000 hits a year. Not bad for someone whose last hit record was in
1975. When the original Napster was running full-tilt, we received about 100 hits a
month from people who'd downloaded Society's Child or At Seventeen for free, then
decided they wanted more information. Of those 100 people (and these are only the ones
who let us know how they'd found the site), 15 bought CDs. Not huge sales, right? No
record company is interested in 180 extra sales a year. But... that translates into $2,700,
which is a lot of money in my book. And that doesn't include the ones who bought the
CDs in stores, or who came to my shows.
Or take author Mercedes Lackey, who occupies entire shelves in my local
bookstore and library. As she says herself: "For the past ten years, my three ‘Arrows’
books, which were published by DAW about 15 years ago, have been generating a nice,
steady royalty check per pay-period each. A reasonable amount, for fifteen-year-old
books. However... I just got the first half of my DAW royalties... and suddenly, out of
nowhere, each Arrows book has paid me three times the normal amount!.... And because
those books have never been out of print, and have always been promoted along with the
rest of the backlist, the only significant change during that pay-period was something that
happened over at Baen, one of my other publishers. That was when I had my co-author
Eric Flint put the first of my Baen books on the Baen Free Library site. Because I have
significantly more books with DAW than with Baen, the increases showed up at DAW
first. There's an increase in all of the books on that statement, actually, and what it looks
like is what I'd expect to happen if a steady line of people who'd never read my stuff
encountered it on the Free Library - a certain percentage of them liked it, and started to
work through my backlist, beginning with the earliest books published. The really
interesting thing is, of course, that these aren't Baen books, they're DAW---another
publisher---so it's 'name loyalty' rather than 'brand loyalty.' I'll tell you what, I'm sold.
Free works." (sic)
I've found that to be true myself; every time we make a few songs available for
free download on my website, sales of all the CDs go up. A lot.
And I don't know about you, but as an artist with an in-print record catalogue that
dates back to 1965, I'd be thrilled to see sales on my old catalogue rise! (“The Internet Debacle”)
In other words, Ian says that many artists have seen the value of the downloading movement and that they can profit from it. She sees the recording companies as the major opponents of P2P sharing. You decide where we should begin to sort out the truth of it in an ethical way.
We should note that Jaron Lanier, our summer reading, has concluded that downloads are destroying culture is some way along with artists record sales. He writes that the notion of open culrture as and downloads is factitious and that the artists will not find other ways of profiting from their work (see Chapter 5, pp. 87-93). Quote it!

Suggested shape of the essay
Choose sides. You can be ambivalent but you have to say that even though every point of view has merit, in the long run your opinion is preferable.

1. You can start the essay with the example you already wrote about. Or find another example from your observations or the sources and use that.
2. Then quickly analyze and give me quick thesis in the second paragraph or so. A thesis sounds something like this when understanding or interpreting is your goal.
Our community world needs to understand something because it has some impact.
3. Then you need to define what ethics are. Quote our essays to support your definition. As so-and-so said,… and follow every quote with an explanation of some sort in your own words—In other words,…
4. Speak about what the opposing side thinks and use our Reader to support their argument.
5. React to their argument. Tell me why you disagree with in part or in whole.
6. Now assert your viewpoint. Use the ethics essay to tell me the foundation for your perspective. Then use your experience to make it persuasive and to arouse sympathy with your point. Use quotes from our text.
7. End by telling me the consequences of agreeing or disagreeing with you.

Let’s begin with looking at a real case. You even use it in your essay if you choose. Please write a response for Monday--about two pages will do. Is Downloading Music immoral?
Write a response to this ethical question. Here’s a news account from Bloomberg News. Vivendi, Music Industry Win First Downloading Trial (Update2)
By Susan Decker and Tom Wilkowske:
Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group and other record companies won the first trial over music downloading in their case against a Minnesota mother of two accused of sharing songs over the Internet without permission.
A jury in Duluth, Minnesota, said today that Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old environmental coordinator with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Indians, improperly distributed songs over the Internet. She was told to pay $9, 250 for each of 24 songs downloaded, for a total of $222, 000.
The copyright-infringement case was the first against an individual to go before a jury since members of the Recording Industry Association of America began filing lawsuits four years ago against people they claimed were improperly swapping music files. Thomas denied downloading the songs and said the record companies couldn't prove that she did.
``The law here is clear, as are the consequences for breaking it,'' the RIAA said in a statement. ``When the evidence is clear, we will continue to bring legal actions against those individuals who have broken the law. This program is important to securing a level playing field for legal online music services.''
Thomas's lawyer, Brian Toder, of the Minneapolis law firm Chestnut & Cambronne, had no comment on the verdict. In closing arguments, Toder said Thomas, who lives in Brainerd, Minnesota, copied some songs onto her computer from CDs she owned, and she didn't know how unauthorized copies may have gotten there.
``We don't know what happened,'' Toder told the jury. ``All we know is that Jammie Thomas didn't do this.''

Welcome to the Jungle.
The record companies claimed that Thomas downloaded 1, 702 songs to her computer from the music site Kazaa. The trial centered on just 24 of those songs, including ``Iris'' by the Goo Goo Dolls and ``Welcome to the Jungle'' by Guns 'n Roses.
A computer security firm hired by the industry detected the songs remotely in a shared folder on Thomas' hard drive, a folder Thomas said wasn't hers. Music industry lawyer Richard Gabriel said the jurors, speaking to him after the verdict was announced, told him that Thomas was tech-savvy enough to know what was happening on her computer.
``It seems that the jury was sending a message,'' said Gabriel, of Holme Roberts & Owen in Denver. The jurors declined to speak directly to the media.
Ray Beckerman, a lawyer with Vandenberg & Feliu in New York who represents other people who've been sued and set up a blog on the industry policy, said the verdict should be overturned on appeal. He said the decision will just embolden the music companies to file more lawsuits.
``They'll feel, `Oh we got this great thing that we can go around and brag about it and scare people,''' Beckerman said. ``That's what they live for, scaring people. It's all based on extortion.''

26, 000 Suits
More than 26, 000 lawsuits have been filed by record companies, and about 8, 000 have been settled, usually with the individual paying about $3, 000. Some cases have been dismissed because the individuals were dead, children or people who didn't own computers, or because of other hardship reasons.
While the recording industry has been criticized for suing its own customers, music companies say the suits have been effective in raising public awareness and cutting down on illegal downloading.
The RIAA, citing its own polling, said the percentage of people who said downloading for free is illegal jumped to 73 percent in 2007 from 37 percent in 2003. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that piracy costs labels $4.5 billion a year worldwide in lost sales.
The record companies sought from $750 to $30, 000 for each of the 24 songs, and as much as $150, 000 per song if the infringement was found to be willful, or intentional.
The association's members include the labels owned by the four major record companies: Universal Music Group, Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG's Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd.'s EMI Group Plc, and Warner Music Group Corp. All the companies had songs that were part of the suit against Thomas.
The case is Capitol Records Inc. v. Jammie Thomas, 06-1497, U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota (Duluth).
To contact the reporters on this story: Susan Decker in Washington at sdecker1@bloomberg.net ; Tom Wilkowske in U.S. District Court in Duluth, Minnesota, at wilko@clearwire.net .

Homework for Monday
A woman was charged with illegally downloading about two dozen songs and lost in court. She is being fined $222, 000.00 dollars. She was originally offered a settlement of a few thousand dollars. As you can see, she simply denied doing it.
What do you think of this case? Is it a moral question at all—or just some question of disputed rights and ownership? Is it immoral, unethical or illegal to download music or all three? Is it unethical to choose to prosecute one person and not the other millions who commit the same crime? Is it unethical to fine one person thousands and another a quarter million?
Should music companies create a system for downloading that serves its customers? Should all web material be without copyright? or—Should we respect the rights of artists and music companies to own and profit by their products-without downloading?
Give me your opinion. Combine with your personal experience and observations of others. And quote the passage in two places at least.

Essay beginnings
What happens at the start of an essay? I have four qualities that I look for in a sturdy academic essay:

1. Establishing the significance of the essay- why it had to be written and /or why it should be read (You can do this with a story or with cases that illustrate the problem or with a statistic or a very strong quote and many other ways. Do you know someone who downloads?);
2. Asserting the purpose/thesis of the essay—what does the writer want us to know or to understand;
3. Finding the focus or the scope of the essay—what are limits in this essay, in the ideas, the objects under consideration; and
4. Suggesting the thrust of the essay—where is it going, what is the map of this essay (You could say in this essay I will…. But is that too overt?)
I will be looking at the essay to see how it begins. All of this should somehow happen in the opening paragraphs of your essay. You decide how to make it happen.
Remember that persuasion includes–as Aristotle said—ethos, pathos and logos, or (1) our trust in the writer or other authorities, (2) our reaction to the powerful emotions in a story, and most of all (3) our faith in irrefutable logic. Good writers use all three in some way.