Watching television illegally online and illegal music downloads

As technology has improved so has peoples understanding of it. For this reason software has been made called peer-to-peer which allows users to share files and data to anyone in the world using that software. This means that people have been downloading movies, music and software for free. This is evidently going to impact on the companies profit and venue, which is easily seen in CDs sales which have been decreasing.

Table taken from http://www.teleread.org/2007/04/12/ender-analysis-on-music-industry-drm-piracy-red-herrings/

While peer-to-peer software allows users to download data anywhere they want for free. The internet also has a variety of websites allowing people to watch television programmes for free. These places are often shut down and deleted for copyright infringement, but they also stop companies receiving the profit they deserve. I think this is the reason that companies are using internet software such as ‘4od’ (channel 4 on damand) to help stop people suing peer-to-peer or these illegal websites to watch their licensed material. Youtube is also a good example as it was sued by several companies due to people watching their products for free on this website. This ended with the companies and Youtube signing a contract which allows people to view their content for free on Youtube. I think this may also be good as it means that the companies still receive profit from their film and music.

Image taken from Youtube.com