Teens Don’t Care About Copyright Infringement

Roughly fifty percent of teens think that free downloading and file sharing of copyrighted content with out permission, is acceptable according to the Pew Internet & Life Project’s study on Teen Content Creators and Consumers. Quite frankly, this fact shows that something needs to be done about teen’s usage of copyrighted materials. Teens today who engage in these activities are part of the C-generation. The C in C-generation stands for: content, create, communicate, and co-modification. So basically, the C-generation is a group of people, who take in new content found on multimedia sources, rework the content and redistribute it. Copyright infringement and plagiarism took off soon after the internet became an everyday staple in households; leading to the creation of the C-generation. The C-generation has also evolved through the use of Peer to Peer networks and YouTube, which provided new content to modify and distribute, no matter if it falls under copyright or not. Peer to Peer networks allowed for the transfer of media among people on the internet, where as YouTube allows for interactive video posting on the internet. Teens in the C-generation do not care whether they are engaging in copyright infringement therefore we should make a greater effort to catch offenders, as well as educating teens about the nature of copyright infringement and plagiarism.

The general public needs to make a greater effort to catch teens who are openly taking materials that fall under copyright. There are many current efforts being made by professors and the government to decrease copyright infringement and plagiarism, but more efforts need to be made to stop teen offenders. One form of copyright infringement is plagiarism, which is the practice of using someone else’s writing or research and claiming as one’s original work (Silvester 22). Currently many students have to run their essays and research papers through websites such as turnitin.com and plagairsim.com, to check if they are plagiarizing from the internet or books sources. Silvester (23) suggests that, “more than 30 percent of students in undergraduate colleges today are guilty of plagiarism.” Teachers aren’t the only ones who have been recently monitoring teens who use plagiarized material; the federal government has also been watching for copyright infringement on Peer to Peer networks and YouTube.

Teens in the C-generation have relayed on Peer to Peer networks and YouTube, to gain access to new media and redistribute it. However, most of the material found on Peer to Peer networks and YouTube are under copyright, and the distributors may not necessarily have a license to circulate the new material. The federal government draws the line between what requires a license to distribute and what does not. The line is considered crossed when anyone who owns a copy of the material and distributes it for profit, or exceeds the boundaries of a transfer license (U.S. Copyright Office). Many lawsuits have been filed since the government has had to step in and enforce copyright restrictions with in Peer to Peer networks and YouTube. The rise in lawsuits is partially due to the use of a government created ‘malware’ used to catch teen offenders. The government has taken certain precautions due to copyright infringement, and now sometimes the FBI may become involved in catching reoccurring teen offenders. Although the government was successful in creating new malware to monitor Peer to Peer sites, some things still may go unnoticed due to the constant revising with in copyright laws. Many teachers and professors are making efforts to stop plagiarism, and the Federal Government is also cracking down on Peer to Peer networks and YouTube. However, some of these efforts seem to be falling short, since many teens can find loopholes and ways to work around the line that has been set in place.

Copyright laws are changing more and more due to the advancement of Peer to Peer networks and YouTube, yet sometimes these advancements leave room for teen offenders to find loopholes with in the law. The push to advance the laws has left many looking for a way to work around them. Obviously these loopholes are working since Peer to Peer networks are still allowing teens downloading copyrighted materials; even to the extent that teens download copyrighted materials almost twice as often as adults do (Johnson 5). In these cases it seems that no matter how much the government works to prevent illegal downloading, some teens seem to get around the law and can easily access copyrighted materials. Also, Peer to Peer networks are using email portals to send data through the network since many internet service providers block Peer to Peer portals (Johnson 5). The blockage of these portals is another example of how teens find ways to get around the efforts made by the government. YouTube has also recently been involved with the law suits dealing with copyright infringement. Many companies are trying to blame YouTube for allowing their members to use copyrighted materials, even though there is no way for YouTube to monitor this. It was determined that as long as the offenders and YouTube agree to follow the copyright if asked by the company, then there should be no problem on YouTube; yet there are thousands of videos on YouTube that contain works that fall under copyright (Shields 4). The ability that teens in the C-generation have to work around copyright laws and not get caught shows just how much teens need to be educated in the legal consequences of copyright infringement and plagiarism.

Many teens engage in copyright infringement and plagiarism, and don’t necessarily know exactly what they are getting themselves into. Most teens in the C-generation are being educated in school about the consequence of plagiarism. However, the majority of teens who copy and paste from the internet, or download the newest hit on the billboard top 100 don’t seem to know what they are specifically in violation. Nearly half of all teenagers have no familiarity with copyright laws and don’t feel that the same type of punishment is necessary for illegally downloading media from the Internet as other types of theft. (Cheng 1) The fact that nearly half of teens feel that copyright infringement and plagiarism is not the same as committing petty theft illustrates that teens generally are not educated about the specifics. A survey on teens and copyright infringement said that teens relay on their parents as their main source of information when dealing with possible copyrighted materials (Cheng 1). But to get the message out about the risks that come with downloading copyrighted media, teens are going to have to get the education from somewhere else other than their homes. Before, it was stated that teachers and professors discuss plagiarism in schools, but plagiarism isn’t the same as copyright infringement. So it is up to the general public, the government, television ads and radio ads to educate the teenage population among the C-generation about copyright laws and plagiarism.

Teens don’t seem to mind whether they are engaging in copyright infringement or plagiarism, and people need to make a greater effort to catch offenders and to educate teens, since most don’t know what is legal verses illegal. Since copyright infringement has become an issue over the past few years, actions other than those made by professors and the federal government need to be made. Efforts also need to be made on the front of education for teens in the C-generation. The pew internet project also said that, “30% of teens admit to (their) current use of peer to peer networks for downloads,” (Lenhart 6) on the issue of teen content creators and consumers. This is enough evidence that copyright infringement among teens is a big issue and something needs to be done by everyone to help this crime come to an end.



Annotated Bibliography

Cheng, Jacqui. "Survey: Teens Rely on Parents to Teach Them about Copyright." Ars Technica. 13 Feb. 2008. Web. 18 July 2010. .

Lenhart, Amanda. "Most Teen Downloaders Think That Getting Free Music Is Easy and It’s Unrealistic to Expect People Not to Do It.” Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. Nov. 2005. Web. 17 July 2010. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/Teen-Content-Creators-and-Consumers.aspx

Shields, M.. "YouTube Suit Nixed: Open Season Afoot? " Mediaweek 28 Jun 2010: ABI/INFORM Global, ProQuest. Web. 28 Jul. 2010.

Silvester, Niko. “Before You Turn It In.” Writing 27.3 (2004): 22-23. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 15 July 2010.

"Online Service Providers." U.S. Copyright Office. 16 Mar. 2010. Web. 28 July 2010. .