Practice essay on online piracy

In Singapore, internet piracy has been on the rise. According to Lay (2014), a study estimated that 3 out of 5 Singaporeans are guilty of internet piracy. Internet piracy has a detrimental impact to the entertainment industry in profits and sales. Current site-blocking solutions have yet to show results, therefore The problem has to be solved through increasing the punishment of internet pirates and also reducing the price of the product from legalised producers.
Internet piracy affects the operation of the entertainment, and gaming industry. As people can get movies, video games and music through illegal download for free, they do not need to spend the high price to get the things they want. However, illegal downloading leads to business losses for these industries. In Singapore, music sales have dropped from an initial $29.8 million in 2009 to $16.4 million and this has led to famous music retail chains in Singapore to cease their operation (Lay, 2014). If this issue continues to persist, there will be lesser movies, music and games for the people to choose from because these industries will be reluctant to produce the goods since it is not profitable to them. Hence, the quality and quantity of the entertainment and gaming industry will be significantly reduced.
In Singapore, the government has been actively trying to deter Singaporeans from illegally downloading files. The government is imposing site-blocking to deter Singaporeans from sharing illegal copyrighted files with one another (Lay, 2014). Site-blocking forces Singaporeans to buy the files they want legally from the relevant industries. However, the effectiveness of site-blocking is limited. According to Lay (2014), experienced pirates can bypass the blocked websites by using proxies and virtual private networks. Moreover, there is a huge amount of websites that are facilitating illegal piracy and it is almost impossible to block them all. Therefore, site-blocking might only prevent the less tech-savvy from committing illegal downloads, but certainly not the more experienced ones.
One solution to reducing illegal piracy is to increase the punishment of online piracy while continuing to implement site-blocking. This solution limits the number of websites users can go todo illegal downloading but also when caught, they serve a bigger penalty than before which includes an extension of jail sentence or paying a higher amount of fine. This shows that the Singapore government does not tolerate illegal piracy and by increasing the punishment of online piracy, it might deter users from illegal downloading. Next, the entertainment, gaming industries can also reduce the price of their products. According to Benton (2015), Sportify, a legalised low cost music provider, is a big hit among its consumers, having an estimated 15 million paying users. This shows that users do not mind paying for movies, games or music if it is not too expensive for them. These solutions will significantly reduce piracy.
Online piracy has a huge impact to the quantity and the quality of the end products of the entertainment and gaming industries if it is not controlled. Site-blocking is not as effective as expected; however, this can be improved by increasing the punishment of illegal downloading acts and also reducing the price of these products from legalised providers can help to reduce the problem of illegal piracy in Singapore.

Critical Reflection: My Academic Writing

As I was from the polytechnic, taking the QET was necessary because most polytechnic students in NUS do not possess the necessary qualification in English. The format of the QET was somewhat similar to the General Paper of the A Levels which is not taught in the polytechnic. Hence, I did not do sufficiently well for the QET to get exempted from ES1102.  However, after completing ES1102, I felt that this module is necessary to those who do not fully have the understanding of academic English. I had some takeaways from ES1102 and I would like to share on how this module had improved my academic English skills.

ES1102 gave me invaluable lessons of academic English language as well analysing a writer’s academic texts. Prior to my first lesson, I did not have any clue in English academic skills. However, after going through 11 weeks of lessons, I was taught on citing relevant sources of APA format to substantiate our arguments in essay. I was also taught on the formats, some vocabulary words usage of English writing and to my surprise, bombastic vocabulary words are not encouraged in academic writing. Even though I had to submit essays almost one in every fortnight, I think writing various essays frequently improved my English academic writing skills significantly as I was out of touch with essay writing since secondary school. The module also taught me some basic grammatical mistakes students commit during English writings. Personally being weak in grammar, the tutor as well as the online grammar exercises offered by ES1102, helped me realised the common mistakes I had made in the past and this significantly reduced the common grammatical mistakes I would have made in my previous essays. Therefore, understanding English academic writing skills and the correct usage of grammar words were my biggest takeaways from this module.

ES1102 had provided students with many useful notes and sample essays that I felt that it can be useful to my future needs. To prepare for future academic reports or exams, I will refer to some of these notes provided from ES1102 to ensure that I am writing my essay in the correct APA format which includes citing of sources. Also, these sample essays are able to provide me with a spark if I am stuck on starting an essay. Hence, I feel that the course materials of ES1102 are really important to my present and future needs and these notes can definitely help me to improve in academic English skills.

In conclusion, taking this module had certainly impacted my understanding of academic English skills and it also gave me an idea on how to write correctly in my future assignments in NUS. I would like to thank my tutor for teaching us and I am sure that everything that was taught and use in this module will still be relevant for me in future.