The phenomenon of file sharing through sites like Napster, LimeWire and KaZaA have led to the huge practice of streaming and downloading free music, movies and other files for the past few years. College students in particular have become downright obsessed with this practice—so much so, that it resulted in college campuses installing special software designed to block all illegal file sharing back in 2010. Students violating campus policies were faced with hefty fines, as well as community service, loss of Internet access and other consequences, which vary from school to school.
However, not all colleges have turned to such extreme methods in the attempt to prevent students from using illegal file sharing programs. Some choose to simply notify the student of their offense and require the removal of the downloaded files from their computer and anywhere else the file(s) may have been stored.
Despite such diligent efforts, some websites and students have still managed to enjoy their favorite music and movies for free without getting caught. Recently, the RIAA has acknowledges on its official website that college students are avid consumers of downloading free movies illegally. This is no secret, especially given the fact that many traditional college students participate in this activity as a common part of their lifestyle. Not only are students usually on tight budgets, which prevent them from going out and paying for movie tickets, being cooped up in their dorm rooms or apartments during the term often require some form of free and convenient entertainment. While such reasons do not justify downloading free movies, it does explain why so many students take part in this practice without seeing it as being a bad thing. Students on campuses across the nation, from Columbia University in New York to Texas A&M, UCLA in Los Angeles and UC Berkeley in the Bay Area (not to mention the many students at community colleges), typically don’t think twice before visiting one of the many websites that specialize in offering free movies for download.
The easy access to free movie download sites is another huge contributing factor to this issue. A simple search using the keywords “free movie downloads” turns up scores of results for students to browse through. However, many of these sites have been shut down or disappeared for one reason or another. BobTheMovieMan is one such site, which enjoyed a lot of traffic by offering the latest movies for free download but has been shut down since July of 2011. Qirina, a new tool designed to summarize what certain websites are about based on the text it analyzes on the front page of any particular site, describes this website as targeting people interested in not just downloading movies, but allows for live streaming, rating movies, providing links to other resources, etc. The tool also lists dozens of other websites that serve the same purpose, which undoubtedly provides additional information that will help the organizations dedicated to shutting down these sites permanently.
Comments