Picture analysis correction

Introduction

The document we are presented with is a cartoon by Wayne Staskal extracted from a newspaper,The
Tampa Tribune. It was published on March 8th 2008. The scene takes place in jail where two
prisoners are having a conversation about downloading. One prisoner, who, apparently, is the
downloader, is proud to say to his cell mate that the numerous stripes on the wall correspond to the
number of CDs he has downloaded. His cell mate is rather surprised because downloading is the
reason why he has been sent to jail. But, the man seems rather unaffected by his plight since he is
smiling and appears rather happy. This cartoon thus raises an important issue: Can we really consider
downloading as a ‘crime’?

We shall first deal with the relative notion of crime concerning downloading before moving on to the
paradox of the computer and software industries which release on the market machines with more
and more stocking capacities along with free downloading softwares such as e-mule.

Our last part will be dedicated to possible solutions to solve this downloading issue and find a
compromise between the artists, authors and the so-called downloaders.

1. The relative notion of downloading as a ‘crime’.

First of all, illegal downloading is, in some way, a theft because it is as if you were
stealing a CD in a music store. The only difference is that you steal music or videos directly
from home. In other words, your deed causes some kind of prejudice to the artists/actors or
authors.
Nowadays, it is so easy to download that some people do it on a regular basis
regardless of the possible financial losses caused to the owners of the numerical contents.
Consequently, those old offenders could thus be considered as “true criminals”.
But we have to ponder the notion of crime concerning downloading. Downloading is
nothing but cyber theft/stealing so it cannot be ranked as a physical assault or a murder. In
other words, punishments should be adapted to such an offence as downloading and sending
downloaders to prison may be a little far-fetched and may not be effective as a deterring
measure on the long run. Financial penalties may be more effective.

The growing community of downloaders may also have extenuating circumstances

since the computers sold on the market are clearly designed for downloading and the
numerous free and ‘legal’ downloading software programmes available on the web are
clearly a strong incentive to become a ‘cyber criminal’.

2. The paradox of the computer and software industries.

It is no secret to say that the aim of the computer industries is to make money;
consequently, they have to release on the market new products with new high-tech
innovations in order to incite people to buy them. For example, when Apple lauched the
 Iphone and the Ipad on the market, it was a huge commercial success because it was the only
company to propose such a high-tech product.
It is worth adding that all these machines are designed for the web since you can
download many applications to improve their performance. They also benefit from bigger
hard disks and thus a greater capacity of storage. Why do we need such a bigger capacity of
storage? Is it to store word or powerpoint documents? No, we need it to download music or
movies. In other words, these new machines are clearly designed for potential ‘criminal
downloaders’.
On top of that, there are many free and available downloading software programmes
on the web such as E-mule. This is quite paradoxical because if downloading is considered as
a crime, the first thing to do to stop it would be to ban those downloading websites. Or
nothing is done to stop them.

There is some kind of hypocrisy concerning the downloading issue because, on the
one hand, laws are passed to criminalize illegal downloading whereas, on the other hand,
big computer companies such as Microsoft or Apple release ready-to-download machines
on the market. Thus, a compromise must be found between the laws of the market and the
downloading issue.

3. Compromises to sort out the downloading issue.

Solutions already exist to curb illegal downloading and seem to be quite efficient. For
instance, streaming music and videos appear as an interesting alternative to downloading. After
subscribing for quite a reasonable price (some websites do it for free), you can have access to an
unlimited number of music tracks or videos. You can use this handy service on your personal
computer or smart phone. Artists get paid thanks to advertizing banners displayed in the web
pages of the site.

Some websites also offer free music downloading but you can listen to the tracks a limited
number of times. Then, if you like the song or the album, you have to pay for it. This service has
the advantage of letting you pay for what you really like. If you download an artist’s album and
you only like one or two songs, you can only buy the two songs that you like.

Maybe, in the future, all artists will create their own websites where they will put their music
on line for free and they will earn a living thanks to the concerts or interviews given. Free music
on line will thus be their best promotion.

Another alternative to put definitely an end to illegal downloading will be to ban forever
peer-to-peer websites such as E-mule and to drastically reduce the prices of music albums and
videos so as to give to people a strong incentive to buy them.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, we can say that this cartoon is particularly well drawn because it is an
implicit criticism about the criminalization of illegal downloading. Who are the real criminals? Are
they the people who download or the computer industry magnates who sell the computers of
the softwares to them? In my opinion, this issue will be solved in a near future because it would
be a very bad press for computer companies to criminalize potential customers. Technical
alternatives will soon be found to find a viable compromise between the customers’ demand for
downloading, the financial requests of the artists as well with the computer industries’
commercial objectives.