There are many developments happening that are trying to put an end to piracy. Many of these have already been started, but others are still under development.

CD's

If the problem of piracy will become to great many media companies might start making rip-proof CD's. These CD's will not be able to be copied or ripped onto a computer. This would make it so that the music or film would stay in the hands of the person who bought it. Still this would prove to be complicated since only this one copy would exist and if anything were to happen to it, the owner would be left "media-less" and would have to re-buy the CD since no backup was made. The CD could also not be copied for personal use, making MP3 players such as iPods would become obsolete.

File-sharing Websites and Programs

In the near future government law, might outlaw file-sharing and programs that allow people to download media for free, such as Kazaa, mp3.com, MediaMonkey, BitTorrent, or Limewire, completely. This would almost shut down online piracy completely. Another way for this to develop is if all of these files-haring and downloading websites/programs became like iTunes or Napster where people would have to pay for all media files.

Streaming

Many people see this as the best solution to the problem of piracy. Streaming is a feature that allows someone to listen to the song or see the movie, at least part of it, without actually downloading it to their computer. This would allow people to discover new music preview albums, and then decide if they wanted to buy it. The person could listen to the song a hundred times, but they wouldn't be able to download/own it and transfer it to anything else.

If steps aren’t taken soon to stop piracy in the media, many companies and businesses will soon face a dilemma, since won't be profitable or possible to produce any more media. Still if they crack down to hard then millions of people all over the world might be left without music and entertainment. Each future development that comes into play now will have drastic effects on the world of media and piracy

Last modified: 11/26/06
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