AISJ EXTENDED ESSAY
Perception vs reality of Music copyright laws (ITGS Extended Essay)
To what extent are people’s perception of music copyright laws accurate?
Candidate # 000756-049
Aarman Tarapore
Abstract
This essay examines the question “To what extent are people’s perception of music copyright laws accurate?” The essay begins by giving a brief introduction unpacking the topic at hand of music copyright laws bring a clear information technology ideology. Millions of people around the world illegally download, own or have some kind of affiliation to some kind of illegal music download. It first explores the background and history of copyright, digital music format and the legality of it. Next examines what the law really is, the
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Artists use digital media to even make their music. A real world example for this is how ¨house music¨ is purely made from digital music formatting. Not just for their music but artists also massively use the digital media to advertise their music and increase, influence and enlighten there fan base. On the World Wide Web, which is a collection of websites. “Pirate services are clunky and old fashioned compared to the legal services available. The pirate option just cannot offer that complete consumer experience.” (Rob Wellss) This quote is from the president, global digital business, Universal Music Group (UMG). It refers to how no matter how unsatisfying the format of pirated digital Music is. Consumers can do multiple things with the current era of digital music format. Most digital music is in the form of an MP3, a sound compressor that allows sounds to compress and move sound into very small …show more content…
There are many examples to show against and for Piracy of music. Many people think of the law as a lot less than it really is, and vice versa. Copyright infringements could lead to major problems and complications for people. As well as piracy is a crime and who to say tomorrow someone from the government comes and arrests one of us for downloading a song. According to the law they can as it is illegal and punishable in by jail time to download music illegally online. It was evident that my survey could have had errors however at the end it did achieve its purpose. I learnt a lot from the surveys as
In the past, singers made money through CDs and cassettes. These forms of media have been replaced with digital copies of albums and songs. Even this method of accessing music has begun to fade away with the replacement of streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, or Soundcloud. Artists’ music has also been used in advertisements. This can negatively affect the artist’s career. Music artists shouldn’t have their songs in advertising.
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.
McArdle argues that although music file-sharing is easily assessable and available in the millennium generation, free music file-sharing is causing damage to individuals involved in the music industry and in the entertainment industry. McArdle starts off the article by mentioning that record labels suffer the most financially in the year 2009. She also mentions that for the last decade, record labels business are experiencing decreases in revenues. McArdle criticizes the millennium generation for violating property rights of recording labels and the music industry. Moreover, McArdle points out that many young people in this millennium generation are the ones who are downloading music for free. She discusses how hard it was for people to look for music and to copy music in the past history compared to the present. She also points out that young people in the millennium generation do not see downloading music for free as a huge problem. She concludes her article by stating that perhaps music piracy is not such a negative trend. Although it affects individua...
“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 ...
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.
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)
The vibrations on our eardrums make the most interesting sounds. Some vibrations turn into voices, others animal vocals, but the most common is the vibrations of music .Observing our society one can find an individual “plugged” into some form of listening device; be it a cell phone, ipod, or old fashioned listening device. Music plays a large part of every individual's life. Whether it is composed for a movie, audience or transferred through earbuds, music has always been there. But at one point or another each and every one of us has had the urge to listen to instruments with the occasional vocals or vice versa, depending on his or her style of music. Except the process to listen is not how it seems. In Charles W. Moore’s essay “Is Music Piracy Stealing,” he attempts to explain if one downloads a song without paying the composer it is taking away from working an honest living. His argument is valid but because of his limited amount of information on this topic, Moore's essay tends to fade due to poor writing style, weak analogy, and scatter brained content.
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?
Music Copyright is a very important aspect of the music industry. The Copyright law was established to preserve the creativity and rights of authors, composers, performers of expression. Copyright is the law that protects the property rights of the creator of an original work in a fixed tangible medium. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/copyright) A fixed tangible medium is something substantial like copying lyrics on paper or putting a song on tape or CD. Copyright can be seen every where in the music industry. Many music artist of our culture today have been involved in copyright issues. Recently, on MTV news it was stated that, "As the music industry becomes increasingly concerned about protecting the integrity of artists copyrights in the age of MP3. Prince has now filed a motion in New York federal court aimed at shutting down several websites offering free downloads of the Artist's songs." (http://www.mtv.com…19990304/prince.jhtml) In addition, in recent music news, "Nine Inch Nails lead man Trent Reznor copyright infringement suit was dismissed. Another artist claimed that the Reznor had stolen material for his last album." (http://www.mtv.com…19991202/nine_inch_nails.jhtml) The copyright law has become an important legal aspect to know our music generation.
The music industry is an ever-evolving revolutionary entertainment industry for the masses. Music provides entertainment to all different masses due to the variety of genres produced. Music is a very profitable and complex industry. Music has expanded to a worldwide industry for musical artist to express their art through the form of song to the masses. Music not only appeals to the ears but to every aspect of a person. Music allows for individuals to explore and let their imagination expand as they here a song. Throughout the years the industry has undergone dramatic changes. Whether it is genres, forms of how it is distributed, or even the impact the artist have had. The industry is diverse and ever changing as the years continue. In the past 20 years the industry has changed with help of the technological breakthroughs and adoptions.
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?
Piracy is primarily a problem for the entertainment and software industries, and therefore piracy most often involves violations of copyright law. Copyright is a legal right that protects creative works from being reproduced, performed, or disseminated without permission of the copyright owner. Essentially, a copyright gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of the material in question.
From the results I was able to find out that music piracy does affect the music market by lowering the employment rate of the country as well as the total revenue received by the music market; however, the market has found other ways to protect their market like creating digital sales, which has worked as a way to increase revenue in the last 2 years.
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.
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...