Digital Rights Management, THE Guide to Legally Downloading

Digital Rights Management is something that protects the music industry from piracy, or illegal downloading.

                Digital Rights Management was created in 1998 by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to help fight against illegal file-sharing.  These files are not only audio files but also movies, pictures, documents, eBooks and more.  Even companies like iTunes had to modify its settings so that you could only transfer music between a certain number of computers and a certain number of CDs.  All of these precautions were put into place to ensure that all of those involved in the music industry get the amount of money they deserve.

Digital Rights Management works by shutting down programs/companies that allow illegal file-sharing but it is not very effective.

Digital Rights Management works through rules and regulations that make sure that illegal file-sharing stops.  For example, people around the world were able to download a program such as LimeWire that would allow you to download things without ever paying for it.  Limewire has been shut down since 2010 however, certain programs have found loopholes in Digital Rights Management that allow people to share with others.  BearShare for example, claims that they allow people to share files on a Peer-to-Peer basis which means that when you share or download a file, you are only sharing with one other person.  The reason this loophole works is because every person is allowed to share with one other person legally and BearShare is claiming to do that by saying they share via a Peer-to-Peer basis.  Essentially, Digital Rights Management is not very effective because music is continuing to be pirated, even Steve Jobs once said that “DRMs haven’t worked and may never work.”

Although I am not for DRMs, do not download illegally! DRMs may find you and fine you massive amounts of money!

Joel Tenenbaum

                Now although DRMs are annoying and we all want our music for free, it is a national law that they be followed and this means that you need to safely and legally download music.  Downloading music from any illegal file-sharing program or website can get you into a lot of trouble, just ask Joel Tenenbaum who was fined 675 thousand dollars for downloading and sharing 30 songs.  Do not share music illegally and do not download music illegally, I know people who have downloaded multiple thousand songs and I could only imagine what the penalty of that strong of an offense could be.

Blogs are Making an Enormous Impact In the Communication World

                Long before the internet, common people depended on the newspaper to get one hundred percent of their news.  People would read their news quietly at the breakfast table, then television came along and news stations popped up in every major city around the world.  Millions tuned into these news programs once televisions became popular and cheap enough to own in the middle and lower classes.  These news mediums are now becoming less and less important as the internet is gaining more and more importance as a medium of mass communication.  One specific medium that the internet has to dole out the world’s news is the blog.

                Blog is a term that stems from the longer term weblog, and these weblogs are websites in which an individual or group of individuals post opinions, facts, and information on a regular basis.  Anyone can have their very own blog on which they can write about anything from puppies to political issues.  But what is so important about some of these blogs?  Are blogs really becoming extremely popular, popular enough to be a form of “mass” communication and if so, why?

                Well, first of all blogs are doing something that has not been mastered by other news sources called “Convergence”.  Convergence is when computing, telecommunications and media are all combined in a digital environment.  Blogs are effectively combining text, audio, video, live feeds, social media, and many other things to create a website that is extremely interactive and entertaining.  A blog may have an article going about a political convention and also contain a video or photos directly from the convention itself pertaining to the article.  Another reason blogs are becoming more and more popular is because news on television or in the newspaper may not cover puppies as much as you are interested in them.  On the other hand, you can search for a blog on the internet that specifically talks about puppies and combines text, video, and images!  This is why blogs are becoming more and more important in the entertainment and news industry.

                You may not believe it but according to eBizMBA, Perez Hilton’s blog, which is all about celebrity gossip and rumors (not necessarily my cup of tea), receives over 10 million views per month!  This is in comparison to CNN’s ratings from last year where it only averaged 357 thousand viewers per month.  The most popular blog in the world is the Huffington Post, which covers politics, big news stories, celebrities, and more.  According to eBizMBA, the Huffington Post boasts about 54 million viewers per month, an astronomical following.  These statistics are critical, they demonstrate the fact that many blogs have already taken over as a source of mass communication.  The question is not anymore whether or not blogs could be a form of mass communication but it is how massive of a communicator will blogs become.

                It is plain and simple to see that blogs are becoming one of the largest mediums of mass communication of news and information around the world.  Blogs have variety and interaction so no matter what you are looking for you could possibly find a blog about it.  If you do not believe me then go onto Google and search the first thing that pops into your head, if there is not a blog about it, then make it yourself!