A prevalent issue in our society that often makes me question my own moral standards is
the topic of intellectual property rights, as it relates to music downloads via the internet. In
recalling my youth, I remember when this issue was of no concern to major record labels
that produce and distribute musical compositions. Originally, there was not a convenient or
cost effective way for the consumer to make copies of vinyl records. When the magnetic
cassette tape became the industry standard, the technology was now available for the
masses to produce copies of their purchased music for distribution.
Established copyright laws that protect the recording industrys intellectual property from
infringement have been in place for many decades. However, these corporations did not
initially enforce them when new technology, that was easily accessible to public, became
widely available. I suspect that this decision was based on cost benefit analysis of legally
enforcing their rights. Moreover, the duplication process, by todays digital standards, was
rudimentary. The process of duplicating a magnetic tape can be correlated to making a
photo static copy of document