Illegal downloads menace to creativity

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The court order for Napster to terminate its operations several years ago has not seemed to have dissuaded other vendors from offering a variety of software that enables users to download all kinds of commercially published material from the Internet.

Hundreds of free downloadable software titles are just a click away on the Internet.

Users only need to google up `free download' and a list of hundreds of free software titles will appear on screen.

Among the most popular software for pirating music and films from the Internet is Kaaza and Limewire, two famous names that have aided users in downloading free materials without too much hassle.

With Kaaza for instance, Internet users only need to type the title of the music they seek and dozens of songs in a variety of formats -- MP3, MP2, and WAV -- will appear on the screen.

In the next step, users are required to click the `download' button and within minutes even the rarest song from an obscure pop band could be theirs free of charge.

Kaaza works in a similar way to Napster, a peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) system. Instead of storing music on a central computer, the music files exist on users' machines.

This enables users to download free materials and exchange them with other Internet users.

However, some users may find their downloaded materials of poor quality and the audio formats may not be supported by popular music-playing software such as Winamp.

Some users, however, feel that Kaaza is not sufficient for their needs, preferring Limewire as their weapon of choice.

It is said that Limewire can find more music files not available through Kaaza, and it operated at better speeds.

Limewire works in a way similar to Kaaza.

In countries such as the United States illegal downloading has been blamed for slumping sales of CDs, however the recording industry here does not perceive them as a serious threat to their businesses.

The Association of the Indonesian Recording Companies (Asiri) has said that illegal downloads only made a small contribution to total copyright infringement activities.

It estimated that P2P only made up 15 percent of all pirating activities.

However, the appeal of illegal downloads will likely grow in the future with Internet connections reaching more of the population.

One user said that the habit of obtaining free music from the Internet will not end soon because it is so convenient.

"We can pick one individual song without having to purchase the whole album, and the songs are usually in MP3 format which is easily transferable. On top of that, they are free," the user told The Jakarta Post.