File Sharing Survey :: File Sharing Illegality Essays

File Sharing Survey With a coke in one hand and the computer mouse in the other, Jack Napster is busy downloading Mp3s from Limewire with his super fast college Ethernet connection. Jack Napster lives for his music and so makes use of record sharing programs in order to keep up with current musical trends. He can access all the parvenue hit songs and even some underground artists that his friends have recommended to him. Jack feels that file sharing is an ethical practice even though it is deemed il sub judice by the law. He feels that the downloading of music does not hurt the music industry on the contrary it actually helps promote smaller artists. Most important, he knows that mp3s ar free, and what college student does not like the word free? College campuses all crossways the nation are full of Jack Napsters. On October 8th, 2002, a garner was sent out to over 2,300 colleges and universities across the nation by the transcription Industry of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA) informing them of the legal issues about on-campus file sharing programs. The letter seeks the support of the colleges to help postulate against file sharing and outlines a set of policies for the schools to adopt (MTV.com). In dispirit of these recent incidents, I choose to delve into this controversial issue by creating a survey to give to college students at crowd together Madison University (JMU). The advise of my survey was to determine the ethical beliefs of the Jack Napsters at James Madison University in response to file sharing programs. The survey was administered to both(prenominal) female and male students as well as students of every undergraduate level. The demographics are as follows eight males and seventeen females were surveyed for a total of xx five completed questionnaires. The survey was distributed in my hall in my dorm, the wash drawing room, in my friends dorm, at a theater rehearsal, and at a super bowl ga thering. The survey was administered from January 24th through January 27th, 2003. I feel that this variety of settings, ages, and gender provide for a more equilibrise survey. Going into the survey, I was sure that everyone on campus used file-sharing programs, but to my storm only 18 of the students actually did.