Why Singaporean Youths Are Not Afraid of Anti-Piracy Laws

Last month there was an arrest of three men in Singapore for illegally downloading copyrighted music. A recent survey taken in Singapore along the busy Orchard Road reflected the youth's belief that they will not be caught because of their naive belief that the probability of being caught is too small to be concern about it - and because 'everybody is doing it'. This is despite the many prosecutions all over the world including Singapore. Youths use Kazaa, BitTorrent and Baidu to get their pirated music. Surprisingly, some believe these technologies allow them to remain anonymous and free from prosecution.

So is their lack of concern for the Anti Piracy law grounded in reality? While it is true that the copyrighted owners will not be likely to prosecute all the offenders of MP3 downloads, betting on the belief that they will not be caught is too much a gamble to expect that someone else instead will be caught.

I personally think that it is of a grave concern - that for some reason, the youth in Singapore appears that they believe that can do whatever they wish online regardless of the law. Just consider the general response to the survey reported here and the growing problem of open racism online.

Somehow, for a reputedly highly IT skilled community and society, its quite hard to fathom how many actually believe that somehow - they can never be caught. Go figure.

IT AsiaOne - News - Who's afraid of anti-piracy laws?