Marc_Kuo

Marc Kuo

Individual Research Assignment: The age of downloading: Music Piracy

**Music Piracy at a Glance** Every day, millions of Internet users break the law by downloading copyrighted music off the internet illegally without even noticing it. The society that we live in has grown so accustomed to downloading music for free that they do not realize that downloading copyrighted music off websites and Peer-to-Peer programs is illegal. A handful of people do realize that it is copyright infringement but since everyone around them is doing it, they are also encouraged to do so. If the law was to take action on everyone who has broken the copyright law, almost everyone would be in jail and/or fined. While downloading free music off the internet maybe not seem illegal, it is no different from stealing from a store. With more households getting access to the internet, the rates of music piracy will only continue to rise. Record sales have since seen its lows as music piracy. The music industry has suffered severe blows due to a decrease in revenue caused directly by the increase in music piracy. Well the music piracy issue is bad news to the music industry; for the consumers, nothing could be better than free music. **Copyright Laws** Several copyright laws have been passed down to put music piracy to a hiatus, but they have had little success. The penalties for breaking these laws depend on the intention of the lawbreaker; whether it is for commercial of personal or private financial gain ( Beal, 2004 ). The copyright laws, however differ for every country. The strictest country of the copyright infringement law, remain to be the United States, where penalties for copyright infringement can go as severe as up to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $250, 000 (Graham, 2004). The RIAA has been repeatedly targeting individuals in the United States for copyright infringement in attempts to spread the word about copyright infringement but so far it has not made that great of an impact (Krause, 2008). In one instance, a woman in Minnesota was charged $220,000 for the illegal downloading of 24 copyrighted songs (Unknown author, 2007). While in Canada, the law actually allows its citizens to download copyrighted music for free, however it is due to a copying levy which charges a fee for the sale of blank media (Saltzman, 2008). **Pioneers of Music Piracy** Some may argue that one of the pioneers of music piracy started with the peer-to-peer software, Napster. (Kapica, 2007) Napster arrived in 1999 and shortly after its launch, made a big impact on the music industry. Through Napster, millions of users are connected to a network online where copyrighted music files could be copied and distributed. During the duration of its free service, Napster’s users increased in large amounts daily as it peaked at 24 million users worldwide in 2001 (Wikipedia, 2004). The amount of copyrighted music distributed quickly caught the attention of record labels; the music industry was in a state of panic and had to do something quick before the issue got out of hand. It wasn’t long before Napster’s free service was shut down by several copyright infringement lawsuits (Wikipedia, 2002). This ended the reign of Napster as one of the biggest threats known to the music industry, but it paved the way for many other P2P programs to come. Today, Napster is a legal music downloading software that requires a fee charged to its users for downloading music. Copyrighted music is dispersed all over the internet and that there is no possible way that the record companies and music artists can reverse this in any time in the future. Succeeding Napster, comes a long list of P2P softwares like LimeWire, BitTorrent, Kazaa, and more. All these software have one thing in common: they do not host any of the content that is shared, as it is strictly the exchange of content between end-users; something that Napster did not do, resulting in its demise. **Consumer Standpoint** Without a doubt, one of the primary reasons for the increase in music piracy is that downloading music off the internet is free. Even though music CDs are rather affordable, downloading music is much faster, easier and not to forget that it is free. Downloading music doesn’t require a person to physically go to the store to buy the CD which makes it much more convenient. Furthermore, the quality of music has taken a dip in recent years and consumers are not willing to pay for a half-decent album. There is definitely no point in buying an album which only contains two or three songs that are decent. Consumers are reluctant to pay the price of a full CD and therefore resort to the much cheaper, free way of attaining music. To make matters worse, the rapid diffusion of internet helps speed up the rate of music piracy. With the help of the internet, millions of songs are right at the fingertips of internet users. Consumers have gotten so comfortable with downloading copyrighted music for free that it is impossible for them to even spend 99 cents to purchase it legally. The mindset that music is free had slowly been imprinted into the consumer market since the times of Napster. For those consumers who are aware of their actions of copyright infringement, deem that they feel morally justified and that others are also doing the same (Unknown Author, 2007). Since everyone is doing it, it makes it seem okay to download copyrighted music illegally off the internet. In one occurrence, a mother was suggested to her son to download music off the internet when the child asked to purchase a CD from a record store (Sterdan, 2007). Downloading music illegally has already become the conventional way of getting music that consumers are not willing to purchase it the lawful way. **The Stakeholders Standpoint** The main stakeholders against music piracy consist of the Recording Industry Association of America, the record companies, music artists and record stores. Most music artists rely on the record sales to stay in business and when music artists struggle with record sales, there is a possibility that we won’t see them for much longer. Many artists have been dropped from their record label from the lack of album sales. Without record sales, artists are finding it difficult to gain funds for the production of more music. The record labels responsible for distributing the music is also in jeopardy as they too have to dig up funds to promote and distribute the music artists’ music. Music piracy costs the industry a whopping amount of $12.5 billion and another 71,000 lost jobs annually (Vpilieci, 2007). Record stores are finding it hard to stay competitive and in business with the decline of album sales worldwide (Vpilieci, 2007). Many music artists have been able to stay in the business by having tours that generate a great amount of revenue to fund future records. **Conclusion** The battle of music piracy between the music industry and its consumers still has a long way to go, but for now the consumers hold the upper hand in this battle. Downloading copyrighted music illegally will continue to rise and it is going to take a lot more effort to even scratch the surface of the illegal sharing of music. Even with drastic measures, reversing the effects of music piracy will be a very long and slow process; at its current state, the music industry and its allies can only hope to slow down the rate of music piracy as it is far too late to stop it. **Works Cited** Ante, Spencer. “Inside Napster”. Businessweek.  2000. Beal, Vangie. “ When Is Downloading Music on the Internet Illegal?”  Dec. 2004 CMTA. “ THE FACTS ABOUT DOWNLOADING, FILE SHARING, AND CD BURNING” < http://www.cmta.com/millionsofwrongs/overview.htm> Google News. “ 24 illegal song downloads cost US woman 220,000 dollars “ AFP.  Oct. 2007. Kapica, Jack. “A new copyright law is coming” The Globe and Mail.  Nov. 2007. Krause, Jason. "BREAKING UP DOWNLOADING. " ABA Journal 92.(2006): 16,18. Research Library. ProQuest. Georgia State University Library, Atlanta, GA. 12 Nov. 2008  Saltzman, Marc. “Is it legal to download copyrighted music for free?”  Feb. 2008.

Spanier, Graham. “ The Digital Piracy Dilemma”.  March 2004. Sterdan, Darryl. “ Downloads' double edge ” The London Free Press. < http://www.lfpress.ca/cgi-bin/publish.cgi?p=216960&s=societe> Nov. 2007. Unknown Author. “Why Do People Download Music Illegally” Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Publishers.  May 2007. Vpileci. “ Music piracy costs $12.5 billion U.S. and 71,000 lost jobs every year” Ottawa Citizen.  Aug. 2007. Wikipedia. “Shutdown” Wikipedia.  2002. Wikipedia. “Napster Unique Users Over Time” Wikipedia.  Apr. 2006