New Social Issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

New Social Issues - Essay Example In fact, digital media has made downloading of songs, photographs, movies, books and a host of other materials available on the Internet very simple. However, those whose rights are being infringed through piracy have not been at ease with this new revolution. This is because piracy makes them lose millions of shillings to pirates. Report indicates that a day seldom passes today without a lawsuit being filed in court regarding copyright infringement. However, going by cases that have been decided pertaining to piracies, it becomes apparent that the U.S. copyright laws have so far achieved appropriate balance in protecting the conflicting rights concerning copyright protection and digital surveillance (Thomas and Scholar, 2004). To begin with, it has to be appreciated that the digital media has transformed the world a great deal by making things, which initially looked impossible extremely easy. This is not withstanding the fact that it has increased the level of piracy, which is an illegality. However, going by the changes that the Internet has come with, it can be argued that copyright was designed for analogue generation. This is because, with today’s digital era, billions of videos, images, and texts that can easily be copied from the original source at no cost. In fact, lost of piracy today go unnoticed. It can also be seen that the framers of the U.S. constitution had the idea of the digital revolution in mind at the time of making the copyright laws. This is because the law attempts to balance the rights of individuals and those of society as regards copyright protection. This is because as much as the law protects the rights of original authors from piracy, it also gives society room to advan ce their ideas and to be innovative (Heald, 1991). The fair use doctrine contained in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 is one such law