This document discusses media piracy and its negative effects on American society. It presents research questions and arguments about how piracy has affected content creators and consumers. Sources used to support the arguments include books, scholarly articles, and websites focused on topics like music industry trends, piracy laws, and consumer behavior around intellectual property theft. The document evaluates the credibility of the sources and their relevance to the positions presented.

1. MEDIA PIRACY
IT’S ALL A CRIME
Creators:
Dajane Martin
Paige Boose
Tori Slater
Brittany Davies

2. DAJANE MARTIN

3. THE QUESTION ABOUT
PIRACY
 What negative affects has media piracy had on the American society?
- One of the things I did to narrow the question I came up with was to keep my
question geared towards a specific area which is America. Also instead of just
saying effects, because there could be negative and positive affects I just focused
on the negative part of piracy. My argument is basically stating that even though
many people

4. MY POINT
 I think the most important point/argument that I am trying to
make is that media piracy is not something that only affects the
criminals who do it. It also affects the people who don’t do because
the prices of the media rises and someone that they know may also
get them in trouble. So media piracy affects the criminals and the
producers but also innocent people. This is a whole society that media
piracy is affecting.

5. THE SUPPORT BOOKS
 Peer to Peer and the music industry: The criminalization of
sharing. Cite: David, Matthew. Peer to Peer and the Music Industry:
The Criminalization of Sharing. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2010. Print.
 Pop song piracy: Disobedient music distribution since 1929. Cite:
Kernfeld, Barry Dean. Pop Song Piracy: Disobedient Music
Distribution Since 1929. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
Print

6. THE SUPPORT ARTICLES
 Scholarly Article: Jailhouse Frocks: Locating the Public Interest in
Policing Counterfeit Luxury Fashion Goods British Journal of
Criminology November 1, 2010 50: 1094-1116
 Popular Article: Music piracy stunting digital music revenue:
industry exec. Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.

7. THE SUPPORT WEBSITE
 Galileo. Georgia Library Learning Online. 15 september 1995
<http://www.galileo.usg.edu/scholar/westga/subjects/?Welcome>

8. LETS EVALUATE
 The sources I used are all credible because they are either from
reliable sources like Galileo which is a online Georgia library for GA
or are all written by authors that have good rating or that are
professors, researchers, or are in other form of a high profession.

9. PAIGE BOOSE

10. RESEARCH QUESTION
 Are the consequences too heavy when one commits the act of piracy on
media?
 I chose this research question after my group and I talked over multiple
topics we could pull from our over all topic of Piracy and I was interested in
learning about the consequences that come with being caught stealing media.
 I narrowed my question down from asking about consequences in general
to dealing with only consequences being too heavy while also making my
question arguable at the same time.

11. ARGUMENT?
 My argument is that consequences seem to vary from being too light
or too heavy. I think that consequences are too heavy at times when
stealing media. I say this because there are many websites circulating
through the internet and many people think that since there is a website
for piracy than it must be okay. We forget that stealing media is just like
stealing a purse from a department store. It is illegal and many will be
caught. I think that more advertisements should be presented so this way
we will be more educated with the act of piracy.

12. RESEARCH SOURCES
 From my five sources I think that three of them will be very sufficient towards
my research. My first source is a book called, Peer to Peer and the Music Industry:
The Criminalization of Sharing. Second source is an article called, Purchase or
Pirate: A Model of Consumer Intellectual Property Theft. Third source is my
second article choice called, Digital Piracy: Causes, Consequences and Strategic
Responses.
 All of these sources will back up my position because they all have to deal with
consequences and why one should purchase media and not pirate.
 Information is also given to what factors lead to someone committing the act of
piracy.

13. EVALUATION
 My sources are credible after I looked over who was the author or
authors and many were college professors and even sources were
cited within my sources.
 I knew my sources would be relevant to my research because they
all have information focusing mainly on what leads to
piracy, consequences and even laws that deal with piracy and how they
are used when someone has been caught.

14. TORI SLATER

15. W H AT A R E T H E E F F E C T S O F P I R AC Y
ON ARTIST AND THEIR LABEL?
I narrowed my question by focusing on artist and
their label, and did some presearching.

16. MY ARGUMENT
 Piracy on music has major effects on artist and their label?

17. THE RESOURCES
 The book I used gets more in depth with music piracy
 The scholarly article is helpful because its written by experts
 The website helps me because its unbiased and relevant

19. BRITTANY DAVIES

20. MY RESEARCH QUESTION
Should music piracy be legalized?
 I came up with my question by first doing some pre searching. I search
in Google key terms like “music piracy problems” to get a general idea
about my topic.
 The first variation of my question was: what are the negative effects of
piracy. This question was way too broad and had no clear room for
opinions.
 I did some more pre searching and saw an article about legalizing music
piracy
 I then formulated the question: Should music piracy be legalized?
 This is a good question because it is not too broad nor too narrow
 There are two opposing sides for an argument
 There is more than enough information which I can find based on this
question

21. POSITION/ THESIS
I believe that music piracy should not be legalized
because it promotes stealing in such a free manner.
Piracy in the music industry has lead to problems
within the economy as well as money loss for artist.
Stealing is still a crime and those guilty should be
held accountable.

22. ARGUMENT
 Money loss for artist
 Promotes stealing
 Negative effects on the economy
 I answered my research question by finding evidence to
back up my thesis statement. Within my sources I found
information about how piracy within the music industry has
had negative effects on the US economy

23. YOUR RESEARCH
 Article: It won’t happen to me: An assessment of optimism bias in music
piracy, written by Ankur Nandedkar and Vishal Midha. This academic article is
about how piracy continues to be a threat to the global economy. Results of
structural equation modeling using a sample of 219 college students provide
evidence that individuals having an optimism bias engage in piracy
 CNN Money- This site is helpful because it includes graphs and statistics
which I really need for my research.

24. EVALUATION PROCESS
 factual because they are written by journalist and experts.
 information is often presented in a way which in unbiased.
With the scholarly article, I can trust that that the information
is reliable because it is often written by a professor
or scholar in that particular field.