What's Wrong? Everyone is Doing it
Ever since 18-year-old Shawn Fanning created Napster in his Northeastern University dorm room in 1999, downloading and sharing music online has become one of the most popular things to do on the Internet today. But why wouldn't it? Getting all your favorite songs from all your favorite artists for free, who wouldn't want to start sharing music? The answer to that question are the people who feel that stealing from the music industry is not morally right, because that is exactly what every person who shares music is doing. People who download music think it's something they can get away with but now it might be payback time to a lot of those people.
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).
This past April the RIAA filed its first legal suits against students at Princeton, Michigan Tech, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. They were charged for the infringement on of the copyrights by operating song-sharing sites on the campus of their university (CBBC). Eve...
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...oney because of these few websites.
So is this whole argument just an example on how society works today? That many people are out there just for themselves, and they don't care who it affects as long as they get by and get what they want the easiest way possible. Or is it just that people do not think of downloading music as a crime? Whatever reason it is, downloading and sharing of songs on the Internet is plainly wrong. It is the work of a person who is out there trying to make a living by singing songs, and those people out there who are downloading are stealing their profits from them. Just because someone made this whole system of sharing songs possible, that doesn't mean that it is the right thing to do.
So whether you think of downloading as just testing out the music or that there is just nothing illegal about it, it will always be stealing.
Singers and songwriters need to make a living somehow. They know that downloading music is a way to get their voice heard, but they also know that it is significantly hurting the business. "When your product is being regularly stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action," said RIAA president Cary Sherman (RIAA 1). There are a lot of people involved in the music scheme when it comes to who needs to get paid by the revenue. From the sale of one CD, singers get one small fraction of the cost, another fraction goes to song writers, musicians also get some of the profit along with retailers, engineers, technicians, warehouse working, and ever...
piracy issues over the Internet would cost record companies more money than what they are
Throughout time, people have resorted to stealing in order to obtain items instead of buying them. It became a problem so consequences were made. Even dating back to the Ten Commandments there were laws against stealing. Recently, theft has become a problem over the internet. Musicians and music companies have lost millions in revenue. Websites such as Napster, The Pirate Bay, and Pandora have made it extremely easy for people, specifically teens, to illegally download and or listen to music for free. Pirating music has become a problem especially because “91 percent of all new music was downloaded illegally over the Internet instead of purchased,” says Logan Lynn from Huffington Post (Lynn). Many, such as the RIAA claim that music piracy is “an ongoing and evolving challenge,” (Who) while others suggest that it is “keeping the music industry alive,” (Issacson).
Recently, there has been a series of copyright infringement litigations against Internet businesses that are involved with unauthorized distribution of music files. The US recording industry claims to lose three million dollars per year because of piracy. A report predicted an estimated 16 percent of all US music sales, or 985 million dollars would be lost due to online piracy by 2002 (Foege, 2000; cited from McCourt & Burkart, 2003) Even though this claim has to be taken with caution, as it is based on false assumption that if copyright laws were strictly enforced, audio pirates would become buyers, it is apparent that audio piracy grew to a worrisome level for the record industry. (Gayer & Shy, 2003)
In all, people should be prosecuted for downloading music illegally. Stealing is stealing and there is no other way to put it. Whether it's in a file or in your physical possession there is no difference between the two. People are losing their jobs and money due to the ignorance of people downloading illegal music files. The people know they are stealing and it should be stopped for smaller fees or shorter jail time. People need to be prosecuted for their
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is suing Napster for allegedly enabling music piracy through its proprietary MusicShare program. MusicShare allows music lovers to open up their stores of MP3 files to all other Napster users. Whenever a user is online, his MP3s are up for grabs, with the only stipulation being that users upload a file for each one that they download. The RIAA says that many of the shared MP3s are illegal bootlegs, but Napster insists that it "does not, and cannot, control what content is available to [users] using the Napster browser." Citing the many legal issues of its program, Napster makes a firm case.
People have been finding alternative ways to access their music since technology evolved, whether it was recording songs off the radio onto a cassette tape or borrowing your friend’s CD in order to ‘burn’ it, No one played by the rules, legally. This piece will discuss illegally downloading music and the political theories and concepts it represents. What are the social norms and attitudes that drive this behaviour? and what is the solution, if there is one?
Along with the development of a file format (MP3) to store digital audio recordings, came one of the new millennium’s most continuous debates – peer-to-peer piracy – file sharing. Internet companies such as Napster and Grokster became involved in notable legal cases in regards to copyright laws in cyberspace. These two cases are similar in nature, yet decidedly different. In order to understand the differences and similarities, one should have an understanding of each case as well as the court’s ruling.
Nowadays, it is extremely easy to download free music from the internet. All someone has to do is download some peer to peer file-sharing application such as Kazaa, Edonkey, Blubster, or Bearshare, and you have unlimited access to download just about anything that you please. But is downloading free music from one of these applications legal? I think that it is. This paper will look at both sides of the argument.
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 music industry started in the mid 18th century with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Through the decades there has been a great increase in this industry; however, the revenues for this industry have declined by half in the last 10 years. This has been caused by music piracy, which “is the copying and distributing of copies of a piece of music for which the composer, recording artist, or copyright-holding record company did not give consent” . After 1980’s, when the Internet was released to public, people started to develop programs and websites in which they could share music, videos, and information with...
Not only is downloading this media illegal, it is also morally wrong. It is our responsibility to know the difference between right and wrong - downloading this media is something that shouldn’t be done. The artists that create the CDs pay a lot of money to make the CDs for our pleasure, and in return they expect everyone to pay for their CDs (its how they make their money). In this respect, downloading illegal music through peer to peer networks is the equivalent to stealing a CD from an actual store.
Whenever you download any copyrighted materials illegally it is considered piracy since the said materials music, movies, game, etc... were not obtained by a purchase. Therefore since the material is protected under the U. S. copyright law those caught and accused can be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Those who are being convicted of a first offense could be fined up to $250,000 and five years in prison.
As explained above, illegal downloading is a great problem affecting the entertainment industry and could soon be an even bigger problem for consumers. Downloading copyrighted material illegally is just as unlawful as stealing from a store or someone’s personal item. To prevent shutting down businesses and industries, internet pirates must be stopped and actively sought after. So if one is downloading material illegally take in to mind what harm it can do to and who is being hurt in the process. Free does not mean that it’s moral or fine; one must analyze and see the consequences of such actions before they continue—otherwise, it could be the end of something great because people were stealing and driving companies out of business, with no force stopping them.
Illegal downloading can also be known as piracy. Piracy is defined as stealing a piece of music in which the composer or recording artist did not give consent for. It is the stealing of music from people such as songwriters, musicians, record label employees, and everyone else who put hard work into it. There are some people who see no problem with downloading music from the Internet but it presents three main problems. The first problem is that the music will mostly likely not have g...