MP3 File Sharing Hurts America

930 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Impact of piracy on music businesses

MP3 File Sharing Hurts America

Before the present time of computers and various media player technology, trading music files on the internet was practically unheard of. Today MP3 music files have become file format that is widely “swapped” over the internet. The problem with trading MP3's is that it violates copyright laws. However, this hasn’t stopped the tens of millions of file sharing software users who continue swap MP3’s. MP3 piracy is a costly business for many companies, and the disadvantages outweigh the advantages of “P2P” file sharing. File sharing is a costly, illegal practice that hurts not only the consumers, but the artists as well.

MP3 is a relatively new form of piracy, only being around for about ten years. The fact that the MP3 format takes up as little as one megabyte for a one minute clip, makes it an attractive storage factor for pirates. And with the CD-R and CD-RW drives, people can convert MP3 files to common CD format, burn to a CD, and play in any CD player, and be listening to a mix of their favorite songs within a half hour of downloading the song. With MP3 players becoming more and more popular options in cars, you can burn MP3 files directly to a CD without converting to a standard audio file and have over six hours of music on a single CD!

“It is estimated that such illegal product costs the music industry more than 300 million dollars a year domestically.” This is why the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is taking a strong stance against MP3 piracy. The damage done to the recording industry in lost profits, increased prices, and lost jobs is overwhelming. In an attempt to put a damper on file swapping, and recapture lost revenue the RIAA has been suing people ...

... middle of paper ...

... released in January that surveyed 1,358 Internet users in late fall found the number of Americans downloading music dropped by half from six months earlier, with 17 million fewer people doing it nationwide. I find that to be an impressive figure.

The damage done to the music industry as well as genuine consumers of the music industry is huge. Online pirates are costing the music industry millions and millions of dollars in lost revenue. The chances of these pirates being caught are constantly increasing. Even though the anti-piracy organizations have made considerable progress, their current anti-piracy methods will not completely stop online piracy. Until these organizations can increase copyright protection, and inform the uneducated pirates who believe their points are valid, they will be fighting an up hill battle, no matter how many lawsuits they file.

Show More
Related

  • Feudal Europe and Japan similarities and differences

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...th wore helmets, armor, and worked for their leader, the shoguns or daimyo for the samurai, and for the knights their lord(s). Lastly, they both had peasants. The peasants both had to pay their taxes and had no power. Feudal Japan and Feudal Europe both had a certain social class order for power and how the people lived and worked.

    Read More

  • The American and Japanese Trading: The Meiji Restoration

    851 Words  | 2 Pages

    When the American Commodore Perry arrived and forced the Japanese to open up trading with the Americans in 1853 it caused a massive shift in the way Japan was run. The shogun could not deal with the looming threat and began a campaign of anti-foreignism “’Toi!’ (Expel the Barbarians!)” . The shogun eventually capitulated and began to allow foreign ships into Japan; this sparked the anti-foreign element, created by the shogun, to remove the shogun and reinstate the Emperor into power: “’Sonno’ (Revere the Emperor) was added to their mantra of ‘Toi’ to represent the old system where the Emperor was like a god. The Emperor took power back into his hands and renamed himself Meiji meaning “Enlightened Rule.” However, the Emperor did not expel the ‘barbarians’, instead he saw them as a method of creating a better Japan and began a campaign known as the ‘Meiji Restoration’ to modernize the nation. Japan needed to modernize because the western countries had forced the Tokugawa shogunate to sign unfair treaties that greatly favoured the western countries, notably the United States of America, Russia, Great Britain and France . One of the key events of the Meiji Restoration was the decline and fall of the samurai class in Japan. This essay intends to show the reasons for the decline of the samurai at the beginning of the Empire of Japan through the policies enacted during the Meiji Restoration. This will be shown through the military, cultural, political and social reforms enacted by the Japanese government.

    Read More

  • Should People Be Prosecuted

    669 Words  | 2 Pages

    Big time record companies and artist are losing billions of dollars due to people illegally downloading music files. The

    Read More

  • The Napster and Grokster Cases: Differences and Similarities

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Tragic Hero in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    56, No. 3 (1989), pp. 543-569. The Johns Hopkins University Press. JSTOR. Web. 24 April 2014.

    Read More

  • The Man In Front of Generation X's Rebellion

    1501 Words  | 4 Pages

    Before diving into Cobain’s musical rebellion, it is important to be briefed on his background to understand his reason, his ability to relate to teens, as well as his essence, of resistance. Cobain grew up in the small down of Aberdeen, Washington where his parents raised him until their divorce when Cobain was only eight. After the divorce, Cobain was shuffled between family members and he soon started exhibiting signs of rebellion-such as his use of drugs- that he later expressed through his music (Spirit Interviews). In high school, Cobain was seen as an outcast because he couldn’t fit the masculine jock persona. Cobain even reflected on his inability to relate to...

    Read More

  • Teen Music Piracy: Innocent or Guilty

    1302 Words  | 3 Pages

    While many suggest that music piracy is destroying the music industry, others claim that it is actually helping. On average, people who pirate music “legitimately purchase 30 percent more music than non-P2P (Peer to peer) users.” This is what Betsy Issacson claims (Issacson). Most of this music is copied from friends and families that bought it from a music store. In 18-29 year olds, this is where they get about 30% of their music from.

    Read More

  • Medieval Europe

    572 Words  | 2 Pages

    Feudalism was a large part of both Japanese and European society. Land was the basis of the feudal system. The concept of feudalism in Europe and Japan began around the same time and the relationship between lords and their vassals were about the same in both societies. However, in Europe, the lord and vassal relationship was more of a legal contract, yet in Japan it was morally binding. The fragmented and decentralized nature of government made the European feudal system less organized than its Japanese counterpart. Increases in trade led to the development of m...

    Read More

  • Meiji Restoration

    1968 Words  | 4 Pages

    Harootunian, Harry. Toward Restoration: The Growth of Political Consciousness in Tokugawa Japan. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970.

    Read More

  • Music Piracy

    574 Words  | 2 Pages

    Music piracy is the process of copying, or file sharing copyrighted materials illegally. Music theft hurts the artists that bring music to your ears due to the fact that they’re not receiving a decent amount of income because their songs are obviously getting stolen. A survey has identified that 70 percent of all 18 to 29 year olds have pirated music, TV shows, or movies. Another poll found that 46 percent of all Americans have engaged in piracy (Anderson). Back in the 1980s, music piracy was slightly spotted, when people created things called mixed tapes, however making these did not cost the industry much money. Cases of music piracy highly increased after the compact disc (CD) was created in 1982. One major case of music piracy was affiliated with the heavy metal band Metallica on April 13, 2000. Metallica filed a lawsuit against Napster due to many copyright infringements, and racketeering. The heavy metal band found $10 million worth of damages which is roughly $100,000 per downloaded song. NetPD evaluated Napster’s illegal program, and produced a list of 335,435 users that were downloading and sharing the band’s albums.

    Read More

  • Organizational Change Within The Police Department

    2008 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the image below you see the organizational chart that depicts the department and its separate divisions, as well as who is in charge of what department, and what personnel. It is plainly obvious that the chief is in charge of only the administrative personnel, and the deputy chief, as well, as the volunteers. The chief answers directly to the city manager, the deputy chief answers directly to the chief.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Land Use Graphs

    863 Words  | 2 Pages

    The graphs show the results that were expected from the land use questionnaires. In the tables, the trend in the graphs show the total’s and average’s over 147 years.

    Read More

  • Illegal Downloading "is" Stealing

    518 Words  | 2 Pages

    With the popularity of the Internet, sales for CDs, DVDs, Movies, and many other products have increased. Along with the increase of sales has brought forth an ever increasing problem of illegal media being downloaded. Programs such as Bittorent, Kazaa, and other direct-connect networking programs have allowed the transferring of such illegal media. Downloading song files from the Internet over a free peer to peer network is the moral equivalent of shoplifting music CDs from the local mall.

    Read More

  • The Effects of Piracy on the Music Industry

    1131 Words  | 3 Pages

    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?’

    Read More

  • MP3

    2023 Words  | 5 Pages

    But what exactly is an mp3. Well an mp3 is a compression form (like .zip). The name mp3 stands for Mpeg 1 Audio Layer 3 and its compression algorithm is based on a very complicated model (“MP3 Info”). This model was developed based on the fact that the human ear cannot hear all audio frequencies. Every hearing range for humans is between 20 Hz to 20Khz, and the human ear is most sensitive between 2 to 4 kHz. So, what this mp3 model tried to do was eliminate the frequencies, which the human ear is unable to hear, keeping all the hearing frequencies so everyone will get the hearing experience intact.

    Read More

More about MP3 File Sharing Hurts America

Open Document