What's the Deal with Copyright and My Music?

Yesterday's presentation on copyright was beneficial with a lot of new information. I learned a few facts such as the first copyright law was passed before the Bill of Rights. Another cool fact I learned was that the original time of copyright used to be 14 years. This has all changed and in this day and age I learned it is extremely crucial to understand copyright laws. As students on a college campus, copyright laws are highly enforced. I did not know that 4% of all file sharing that’s done happens on college campuses include lawsuits that are aimed at higher education. This includes the popular use of file sharing especially when it comes to music. When I was at home I never thought of getting a copy of a cd as anything, however after this presentation I have learned some important information. Now I understand why there are penalties for this acts. A person can be charged between $13,00-$17,000 for a download of a single song. I did not know that file sharing could cost a person that much! As students on a college campus we need to take certain precautions concerning file sharing. For starters, we should immediately stop downloading music and files for our own safety. There are plenty of websites such as iTunes where you can purchase a song for ninety-nine cents or a whole album for a good price. There are other websites such as Rhapsody where you can pay every month and download as many songs as you want with no penalty. Another alternative that I like to use is youtube. Whenever I'm on my computer I like to open up youtube and play some songs while I'm doing my homework. By being unaware of the consequences concerning copyright and file sharing we can prevent many problems.