Christian Kids Illegally Download
A recent poll revealed that while 88% of kids aged 8-18 understand that music and movies are copyrighted, many admit to using file-sharing networks to download media anyway. 77%-81% of teens who listened to Christian music had engaged in music piracy in the last six months. 53% of those surveyed said they download music, whil the poll found that young people worry about acidentally downloading a computer virus from a P2P service (60%) than whether they can get in trouble with the law (50%), while only 29% worry that the act itself is “wrong.”
What’s most alarming is that eight out of ten kids and teens understand the definition of copyright and nearly all of them, especially teens, are aware that software, music, and movies are protected by copyright,” said Diane Smiroldo, vice president of public affairs for the Business Software Alliance.
“The fact that kids know stealing software is wfong, and yet they believe like it’s okay, clearly illustrates a challenging ethical dilemma.” “I think that we perhaps niavely hoped that the Christian teens would have been taking the moral high road,” John W Styll, president of the Gospel Music Association, said. “Among teens, they just don’t see it as a moral issue. Ninety percent of them don’t see illegal downloading as wrong. It may be illegal, but everyone is doing it.” Christian youth were proned to use the defense that their file-sharing was a result of a desire to “spread the teachings” contained in these songs which could account for some of the discrepancy in morality.
- Performer Magazine, July 2004
Just thought I would post this article.
