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Effects of piracy in the music industry
Effects of piracy in the music industry
Effects of piracy in the music industry
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Napster was the pinnacle of this combination of recording technology and the internet. Napster was an internet company that launched in 1999 and focused on music streaming and music downloading. At the time Napster was the only real web company looking at the industry of music streaming and music downloads and as a result , Napster saw tremendous success in the first few years of its life and taking the crown as the fastest growing business ever , a record still unbeaten today. Napster’s focus with regards to peer-to-peer music sharing was ease of accessibility and speed , and in both areas they excelled. Napster made peer to peer music sharing easier than anyone had previously thought possible with the introduction of their massive online music market place in which people could share any type of free mp3 into one mainstream directory. However much like streaming services that push the envelope of accessibility Napster ran into several problems along the way and faced heavy opposition. …show more content…
Many record companies did not want to deal with Napster and some even thought Napster was becoming detrimental to the music industry as a whole and as a result very few record companies attempted to work with the Napster business
The RIAA believe that Napster has helped users infringe copyright. The threat of the lawsuit has been around since the conception of Napster and was actually filed four months after Napster went on line. The case is not as clear-cut as it first appears. RIAA argues that most of the MP3's on Napster's site are mainly pirated. Therefore, by Napster allowing and actually making it easier for users to download MP3's this means that they are assisting Copyright infringement.
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).
In this case, there are three main effects of Napster on the recording industry. The first one is that it caused a large decline in record sales in a short time. According to this case, the spending on recorded music in U.S dropped 4.1% in 2001 and the industry’s top 10 albums also sold much less compared to the year before. The second effect is that it cased the sales of CD burners, blank CDs and digital audio players increase and nowadays, most new computers come with CD-RW drives installed, which means people can easily store downloaded music, share music with friends and take it with them anytime as well. The third effect is that it increased the cost of recorded music. Once people can download free music through peer-to-peer software services, they have less incentive to buy original editions, which will make recording industry spend more to fight against copyrights and invest more in new artists and new music. Overall, these three effects make the recording industry go through a hard time.
Napster does not condone copyright infringement, there is no opportunity in the software to stop this, or for royalties to be paid to the song belongs to. The reaction from recording artists, record labels and other music industry players has been varied, but primarily anti-Napster. The first action to be taken against Napster was by the band Metallica. In April of this year, they sued Napster Inc for copyright infringement.
The limitless access to music makes it easy to forget that people's careers rely on the profit behind every song. A profit that is continually shrinking, something that is forcing companies to re-think the way they get music to us, the fans. This will affect everyone who has the slightest interest in music. Some for the worse, but many for the better.
Music is universally known as an expression of emotion, rebellion against the man, a way of life, a random collection of sounds, an annoying thing kids listen to, or even a vacation from everything, but in reality music is free of all definition. The industry involved in buying, selling and recording of music has grown so old, treacherous, and ignorant that it can not figure out the steps it needs to evolve with the rapidly expanding music industry. Musicians and fans alike are screaming about the dire need of some modern day innovation in the market. Sadly the monstrous corporations that dominate the market have put a lid on the competitive edge, stopped the innovative changes any smaller companies can make.
It’s probably not feasible to avoid streaming music services nowadays. Every smart phone on the market is able to operate numerous music streaming applications, ranging from radio-style streaming, on-demand streaming, and even cloud-streaming. Smart TVs come equipped with Spotify, Pandora, or Rdio. AT&T partners with Beats music to offer a unique on-demand music streaming service with playlists complied by DJs. It seams that with the advent of Wifi hotspots and high-speed mobile Internet services, music streaming is becoming more and more a part of mainstream life. Spotify has been in the spotlight within this particular segment of the streaming industry ever since its introduction to the United States in 2011. (Roose, n.d.)
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.
The story really begins with Napster and its free software that allowed users to swap music across the Internet for free using peer-to-peer networks. While Shawn Fanning was attending Northeastern University in Boston, he wanted an easier method of finding music than by searching IRC or Lycos. John Fanning of Hull, Massachusetts, who is Shawn's uncle, struck an agreement which gave Shawn 30% control of the company, with the rest going to his uncle. Napster began to build an office and executive team in San Mateo, California, in September of 1999. Napster was the first of the massively popular peer-to-peer file sharing systems, although it was not fully peer-to-peer since it used central servers to maintain lists of connected systems and the files they provideddirectories, effectivelywhile actual transactions were conducted directly between machines. Although there were already media which facilitated the sharing of files across the Internet, such as IRC, Hotline, and USENET, Napster specialized exclusively in music in the form of MP3 files and presented a user-friendly interface. The result was a system whose popularity generated an enormous selection of music to download. Napster became the launching pad for the explosive growth of the MP3 format and the proliferation of unlicensed copyrights.
The music industry impacts the lives of people from around the world. With the implementation of technology, the influence of the music industry has spread to affect anyone with access to technology. Streaming services have contributed to the increased popularity of music. While there are positive effects to being able to stream music and have multiple ways of listening to it, the music industry suffers from the lack of revenue and illegal activity associated with technology. Technology has had both positive and negative effects on the music industry by affecting how people access music and how music is produced
In 2000, Metallica filed a lawsuit against Napster and won. As a result, Napster banned about 300,000 of its users who were sharing Metallica songs. Soon after, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) filed a suit against Napster and the file-sharing server was forced to shut down. [1]
...music. Napster worked through the use of a main server hosted by Napster that contained a central repository. Users would connect to this main server to search for a desired MP3 file and the server would search the server database for a different user in possession of that file. Once a user with the file was found, the two users would become directly connected and the file could be downloaded. Due to the use of this central server, Napster could be considered a type of “brokered” P2P networking, as the two peers only connect after Napster resolved the IP addresses between the two PCs [4]. Regardless of the moral or legal issues surrounding Napster, it is irrefutable that Napster was instrumental in how peer-to-peer networks work today.
The one thing that everyone should be able to agree on is that Napster’s arrival took the world by storm and changed everything. The site grew to be the number one place for peer-to-peer file sharing in the nation and possibly around the globe. This huge amount of traffic made Napster the target of law enforcement and the whole recording industry. Artist, record companies, publishing companies, and radio all felt that Napster and similar P2P networks were capable of causing an immense amount of damage to their business models and bottom line. Not only had Napster become the target of all sorts of litigation, it also birthed similar sites such as Limewire, Bearshare, and Kazaa.
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?’
Napster is a company that developed the so-called peer-to-peer technology that lets people search and retrieve music files directly from one another's personal computers. When Napster first came out, millions of internet users worldwide were illegally downloading and distributing copyrighted music, videos, images, and software for free. After being vilified by the entertainment industry, which claims that Napster and any similar programs could make piracy of almost any digital work unstoppable, and many court battles, Napster was ordered by court to be shutdown in 2000. The technology has been praised as a revolutionary development for the Internet—unaware of the problems that would arise from such practices. However, the termination of Napster was not enough, months later, dozens of new, like programs were being developed and used. And since Napster, not much has been done to stop these latest downloading programs.