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Piracy in the music industry
Digital music piracy
Essays on music piracy
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To Steal Music or Not to Steal Music The music industry is a very cutthroat business. Within the past few months a great deal of controversy has arisen. This controversy is based around whether copying music and sending them to friends is illegal or not. There are many different views on this but recently record companies have taken legal action against file sharers and these people who have been convicted have been given penalties for their actions regarding music copyrighting laws. Considering how these issues have been found on sections D, E, and C this topic is relatively not so important. I believe that this issue should be more important than some of the other issues because it relates closest to the people. Most of the people in America have used file sharing or at least knows someone who has tried it. The action that should be taken should be from the opinion of the people who create the music industry, the people. The first article that has to deal with music and file sharing was published on August 19, 2003, Page E03, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA). In this article the Recording Industry Association of America states that they will not pursue small violators when it comes to the illegal sharing of songs on the Internet. Also, many different people feel the RIAA is being “excessive” says that Senator of Minnesota Norm Coleman. Excessive seems to be the opinion of many people on this topic. 20 days later on April 29th, Apple came up with a potential solution to music pirating on the Internet; the story covering this topic was published on Page C11, Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA). “Two years after angering the recording industry with its "Rip. Mix. Burn" ad campaign, Apple Computer Inc. has won its cooperation in creating the Internet's least restrictive commercial music service yet. The iTunes Music Store announced by Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs yesterday draws from all five major labels in offering more than 200,000 songs at 99 cents a download - and includes some big-name artists who previously shunned online distribution” (Page C11, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 29, 2003). I think the creation of Apple’s new “solution” is not really going to get a lot of customers because, say you buy 10 songs for $.99 per download the price comes out to be around the same price of an album with 10 songs on it.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) wants to let the public know that this file sharing that is going on is illegal. The only way to stop this is to start lawsuits. The RIAA has been making attempts for a couple years to inform the public that file sharing is illegal, but now that nothing has happened appropriate action needs to take place (RIAA 1).
A big topic that has come about is should people be prosecuted for illegally pirating online files. This includes; music, movies, programs, games and pictures. The large portion of online piracy is music. Some will argue stealing a song is as bad as stealing a car. (kain) Others will concur that song artist and record companies are losing big time bucks. Downloading music should be prosecuted as it is still stealing. Whether the person has it in their physical possession or files on their electronics it is still stealing and artist are losing money that is rightfully theirs.
Theodore Roosevelt once said, “ No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing.” This quote can relate to the problem that has been going on against the piracy that has been occurring for many years. It has been occurring more now since it has been becoming easier to get access to certain files online. Personally, I think that people should be prosecuted for piracy because it is illegal, morally not right, and it causes many problems for composers.
Upshaw, D., & Babin, L. A. (2010). Music downloading: Competing against online piracy. International Journal of Business & Public Administration, 7(1), 14-26. Retrieved from EBSCOhost
An “analyst” was quoted in the case (in 2002) as saying that “people will pay for music on the Internet, eventually.” This person was skeptical of the willingness of consumers to pay for
...authority of obtain warrants to shut down the websites of digital pirates, however their authority ends within United States Borders (Wall Street Journal). In 2003, the RIAA developed another strategy, a massive public relations campaign that was undertaken to try and create, what the RIAA says “general sense of awareness” about pirating (Kravets pg1). Using the DMCA to launch more than 30,000 lawsuits, with damages that went up to “$150,000 per purloined music track” and ultimately, because of the massive potential judgments, most of defendants settled out of court with the RIAA (Kravets pg1). By 2008, the RIAA ended their massive lawsuit campaign and turned their attention to something that would later be called the “Copyright Alert System” and the “Six-Strike” policy. Excluding legal alternatives, it is the mildest of the RIAA efforts to try and stamp out piracy.
Radio station then agreed to pay ASCAP royalties through a licensing agreement. Still most radio station were reluctant to pay the royalties, thus caused the creation of Broadcast Music Inc. Broadcasters tried to license the music themselves. The music industry has always faced three challenges: Attempts to control music content through music labeling, Overseas piracy and Protect music copyrights from Internet file sharing. In 1985 the Parents Music Resource Center called for recording companies to label their recordings if it featured any explicit content. Overseas music piracy cost the music industry over $1 billion dollars a year and control 18 percent of album sales. Internet file sharing sites such as Napster violated copyright laws and were sued by several artist and the RIAA. In 2003 the RIAA sued 261 individual for downloading free music. In June 2005 the Supreme Court announced a decision that shut down many free music software providers. Today the music industry is still trying to survive even with its rapid loss in income caused by free downloads. The music industry encourages legal downloading sites and paid streaming
The most well known source for such content was once the pioneer of the P2P technology, Napster. While Napster has battled with lawsuit after lawsuit, the owner finally gave up the fight against the RIAA (Recording Industry Associates of America)...
Is important for anyone who has created any intellectual property to protect it. In the music industry, in order for someone to protect their work, they must obtain a copyright. Music has been around before anyone could obtain a copyright and when the invention of the computer came along it made it easier for someone to steal another artist's intellectual property with the help of the internet. This paper will cover what events have taken a big role in copyright protection for artist, the consequences if someone was to break the rules of a copyright which is called copyright infringement, and how will a copyright hold in the future. Were copyrights enacted without the thought of life changing technology, and how can some music companies surpass copyright infringement and make a profit from the artist? Can a copyright really make that much of a difference in the world we know today?
The music industry, as represented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), has gone procedures in fighting both copyright infringement and piracy. Accordingly, as shown in the report of Arbor Networks, the overwhelming 40 percent of net traffic that shares music through peer-to-peer connection has rapidly decreased to just 18 percent in the year 2009. RIAA has sued internet fans who commit infringement. Furthermore, the association has also presented piracy surcharges on ISPs which offer an upgrade to peer-to-peer connections for fast downloads at a fee, and websites which provide free searches and downloads for music.
Although online file sharing debuted in 1999, lawmakers and copyright industries are just beginning to address the myriad questions the practice has generated. In At Issue: Internet Piracy, authors attempt to answer some of those questions.
Piracy in the music and film is an ever-growing issue that people who choose to join the industries must live with and adapt to as technology and times change. The issue with piracy is not as cut and dry as people perceive. There are many people who lose serious cash from illegal downloading and streaming; on the other hand, there are those whose entire careers have been made from free streaming or downloading and would not be where they are today if it weren’t for piracy.
Moreover, hackers came up with new ways to remove the digital copyrights so the same as before one downloads music and distributes them around. The industry gets its revenue from selling this content, whether it’s online or in stores, this funds new projects and allows for better products in the future. The public should be aware of this, downloading the content for free, and not buying it will decrease revenue for the companies, stopping them from undertaking future projects. “Production companies should lower the price on their products, I can’t buy music for at least 20$ per album and DVDs for 30$, I only make 200$ per month,” said George Issa, a music fan who spends most of his nights downloading music from the internet, “when there is an album or movie that I really like, I try to buy it legally, I don’t think I am doing anything wrong, they are wrong making money off our backs,” he added.
The record industries says that on an average about 165 million song files are traded through university networks.(CBC News) Some of the biggest record companies like EMI, Sony, and Warner are not too pleased with people illegally downloading their songs without paying for them. As these industries take their fight to court, many downloaders in America are in jeopardy of facing fines of over $100,000 for each track they have downloaded or shared on the net. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says that because of illegal downloading, they have lost huge amounts of money and record sales have plummeted. A worker from the RIAA says, "Anyone who is caught making this music available, or downloading it, will be tracked down and taken to court" (CBBC).
Music piracy is a developing problem that it affects the music industry in many different ways including being responsible for the unemployment of 750,000 workers, as well as a loss of $2,5 billion; therefore, I want to explore ‘To what extent has music piracy affected the music industry market in the United States over the last 10 years?’