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Piracy in Music Industry
Piracy in Music Industry
What are the legal issues with napster
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Napster
A battle is being fought over how we access our music. Technology has greatly
changed the days of going to the record store to purchase music. Now we are able to link to
millions of music lovers around the world by hopping on our computers, getting on the interenet
and by using a file-sharing program called Napster. Now many questions arise: Is it stealing
from the artists or is it stealing from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)? It
also brings about the questions of how "free" the internet should be. Where do we even begin
to regulate this giant beast called the World Wide Web?
The way this technology works is it allows internet users to share and download MP3
files directly from any computer connected to the Napster network. The software is used by
downloading a client program from the Napster site and then connecting to the network through
this software, which allows sharing (uploading and downloading) of MP3 files between all users
connected to the network. While Napster does not condone copyright infringement, there is no
opportunity in the software to stop this, or for royalties to be paid to artists whose songs are
being duplicated for free.
Unlike similar file-sharing applications (Gnutella, Freenet), Napster limits users to
uploading/downloading of MP3 files only. These files are compressed wave (.wav) files. The
advantage of MP3 files is that they are approximately one-tenth the size of the corresponding
.wav file and can be close-to-CD-quality. It is for this reason that many artists, record labels
and other music industry stakeholders are concerned by the MP3 file format and applications
like Napster that simplify the sharing of copyrighted material.
According to www.news.com, the RIAA is stating that napster allows approximately
sixty-four million users around the world to steal music from the artists who created it. Yes, it is
true that napster allows millions of users to download songs for absolutely free; however, isn't
this what the artist want from there music? Don't they want their music to be heard
worldwide? Most of all, don't they want their music to be distributed for free so they don't
have to pay out so much money to the record companies?
I understand if the artist is worried about not making any money from their album,
especially since they spend most of their record deal money to not only record their album, but
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.
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...
According to the text A Gift of Fire, Napster “opened on the Web in 1999 as a service that allowed its users to copy songs in MP3 files from the hard disks of other users” (Baase, 2013, p. 192, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The Napster Case). Napster was, however, “copying and distributing most of the songs they traded without authorization” (A Gift of Fire, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The Napster Case). This unauthorized file sharing resulted in a lawsuit - “eighteen record companies sued for contributory infringement claiming that Napster users were blatantly infringing copyrights by digitally reproducing and distributing music without a license” (Communications Law: Liberties, Restraints and the Modern Media, 2011, p. 359).
Before the 1990’s, if people want to listen to music, they just visit a music store and pick up a CD and then put it into a stereo equipment. However, the development of MP3 file format gradually changed the way people listen to music. This format lets everyone download music easily and it can be converted to CD as well. But, there is still a problem: searching MP3 files on the internet is maddening and people seldom can find the music they want. Therefore, the birth of Napster solved this problem, creating a virtual music community in which music fans could use the Web as a “swap meet” for music files. More importantly, Napster is easy to use and it’s free, which expands the range of audience in age. Bandwidth also contributed to Napster’s success. The greater the bandwidth, the faster the file can be transferred. So, Napster really changed the way people listen to music, discover music and interact with music.
Back in the early 1980’s, record labels controlled what people could hear through airplay, record distribution and manufacturing, and selective promotion of music based on their judgement of their audience. An artist’s only feasible option was to go through this system. To obtain music of high quality, people had to buy vinyl singles or albums or tape, and later, only CDs. There was no practical way to listen to music before buying it without listening to or taping off the radio. Music was very restricted by several different record companies.
Through the Copyright Act, the creator is given exclusive rights which encompass credit until after 70 years from death and the option of distribution. In peer-to-peer sharing and free downloads where music is used commercially in the internet, copyright is violated. In fact, as the shown in the statistics above, copyright infringement is practiced by millions in just one day. Probably, these people do not know and fully understand the laws and the penalties such as fines and imprisonment if they commit copyright infringement.
However, he has grown to accept, in his opinion, the inevitability of music piracy. The superstar believes, “People can pirate CD's and download forever. What they can't pirate or copy is the real thing on stage.” A U S T R A L I A ’ S music industry is currently struggling within its bonds; fighting to produce successful artists and return its financial expenditure to the rightful contributors.
The contemporary digital media era, which we can say consider as a revolution, has considerably changed the popular music industry. Thanks to new generation media, the structure of the industry of popular music itself has been completely transformed worldwide. From a wide point of view, we can say that the personal content has shifted from the concept of ownership to the concept of sharing. Smartphones and Tablet PC simultaneously allowed the use and storage of the content itself. In addition, the audience has changed its priorities from purchasing and collection material and physical music to downloading illegal copies.
Over time the form in which we listen to our music has drastically evolved. Going from vinyl records, to tapes, to CDs, to mp3 downloads, and most recently instant streaming. Although technology becoming more advanced has helped our society to grow, the music industry has found it difficult to grow and advance with the change while still being profitable. Starting with tapes people would share their music, making mixed tapes for their friends or family. This continued when artists started putting their albums onto CD’s. It was easy for anyone to get a great new album for free as long as they had one copy of the album. This is called pirating music, it is violating an artist's rights which are secured by a copyright (the free dictionary). Pirating
“These are called record one royalties, because they’re paid from the first record that the company sells” (Passman). All music producers at one point has had to pay royalties on every single album they took part on. However, producers still make more money on their end than the artist no matter what because producer royalties are computed to be less favorable to musicians, exposing yet another flaw in the music industry. A website has recently been created in hopes to sell off deeds to the music simply called Royalty Exchange. Royalty Exchange allows songs to share parts in the royalty amounts.
Music on the Internet is another big issue among consumers and the artists that compose them. Napster was the biggest site for downloading mp3’s, but was shut down because of a big push by the rock group Metallica.
Services like these made music downloadable and people could now share the actual song opposed to just recommending other to listen to it later (MIS Quarterly, 2014). This marked a huge strike in music piracy. People can now pick and choose which songs they want for free opposed to buying the whole record just to listen to those few songs. This has greatly impacted music companies, and in turn, affects the artist. To combat that, labels began to use lawsuits against these illegal downloads.
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...
For example Beyonce’s album Lemonade was “2016’s third biggest album” (Billboard) and it was only available on itunes. Artist are making it available only on certain places because, although they love making music it is not fair to them when they are not making the money they deserve to be making. Musician Joe Elliott gives more of an explanation of how he feels when someone is stealing his songs, “somebody taking our music for free is no different than walking out of someone's house with their tv set” (Ian) these artist are making music to entertain people all over the world but the listeners are not giving anything in return by stealing their music. As this continues to happen, people still steal, no seems to care this could hurt the artist career. Jans Ian explains, “that the industry (and its artists) are being harmed by free downloading” , this could and is hurting some artist because they are not making the money they are suppose to