Crime online

What is the world online? Is it real? Are we safe there? How should we behave
there?
The answer is: it's just the internet. Our internet. The internet we made. It's
exactly like the real world - just a place with shops, and information, where people
chat - but on a computer. But for some reason. we
won't accept so simple an answer.
We think that, as soon as something is on the internet
, it turns into something else, that
it's not quite real.
Take for instance a song. When is a song not a song? When it's on the internet. If
a song is on a CD, in a shop. We would not hesitate
to pay for it. But if you put the
same song on the internet, millions of people
think that you can take the same song
without paying for it. It's still the same song,
written by the same people, who spent the
same hours and same money recording it. But press a
button and it's yours.
There are plenty of justifications for taking things for free on the internet. In
fact, when the government proposed punishing
illegal downloaders with internet
disconnection, a lobby group of artists
and musicians actually campaigned against it
saying that 'it would reduce the civil liberties of every
one of us in this country.'
But how can this be true? How is being banned from using the internet because
you have committed a crime any different to being banned
from a library because you
stole some books from there? The internet isn't a
necessity. It's thrilling and brilliant
and useful most of the time, but it's not a right
to be able to use it. We don't have a
right to listen to the music we want, or watch the films
we like, for free. These things
are treats. pleasures, luxuries. Why is it considered a right?
Because it's the internet.
And why is the internet different from the rest of the
world, where luxuries have to be
paid for? Because...it's the internet.
There is also the argument that it's good for artists to be heard and seen. But
what use are 9 million people who love your work, but not enough to want to pay you
for your song or your film? Fans who don't pay their idols are like lovers who promise
everlasting love but then sit and watch you as you drown.
Do you know who will end up suffering the most from all this? Young people.
the ones who themselves are doing it. The music industry has shrunk 40% since 2000.
Famous music magazines, like Melody Maker and The Face, have now closed. And
young people who try to get jobs in the music industry complain about the low
salaries, while they download hundreds of pounds worth of albums for free.

Assignment 2. Read the text again and answer the questions in written form.

1. According to the writer, in what way do people have a different attitude to the online
world?
2. In what way is people's attitude to online music illogical?
3. What did the government want to do? Who opposed this, and why?
4. What is the writer's view about illegal downloading?
5. Why does she compare fans who illegally download their idols' music to 'lovers'
who 'watch you as you drown'?
6. Why does she think that the people who download will be the losers in the long run?

WRITING

LETTER: Write a letter to an expert on racism. Ask him/her three questions about it.
Give him/her three of your ideas on how to reduce it.
OR
LETTER: Write a letter to an expert on sleep. Ask him/her three questions about it.
Give him/her three of your ideas on how we can sleep better.

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