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Recommended: digital media piracy
Have you ever bought a CD, listened to it, and then wondered, “Why did I spend fifteen dollars on that?” There are two ways in which to answer that question. Either you concur and know how irritating such a situation could be, or you could be one of the many people today who simply omit purchasing music and download it straight from the Internet. It is fascinating what the Internet can do today. Just about anything can be done with the use of a computer. So, why should hard working people who want to enjoy the harmonies of their favorite bands have to trek to a store like “Best Buy” and purchase the dingy compact discs when they could get the same content for free and from the comfort of their home? Beside it being illegal, there isn’t a strong answer. But shouldn’t the musicians, producers, actors, and everyone involved in the production, distribution, and exhibition of this content be paid for their hard work? Yes, they absolutely should, and they are. Bands are able to reach a larger audience through illegal downloads which helps the media conglomerates in the long run. Before I used to download content from the Internet, I would have to wait for the T-train, pay two dollars to board, sit for ten minutes, walk to Newbury Comics, and purchase the CD I wanted. It was such a tedious process to get the CD that is now stowed away collecting dust in the depths my closet. There are stacks of CDs in my house, sitting idly, waiting for someone either to use them, or throw them away. A waste of time, space, and money, buying CDs is simply obsolete. When my brother started getting whole discographies, and albums that haven’t even hit the market yet, I was in disbelief. Now, the idea of spending fifty dollars on the “Nirvan... ... middle of paper ... ... be known. With online downloads, more people can be exposed to their music and the band can reach a wider audience and have greater potential to be successful. So, next time you hear “Friday” by Rebecca Black and feel inclined to purchase her CD, remember that there are more plausible ways to get the music you desire, and that flimsy piece of plastic that you spent 9.99 on will only be sitting on your shelf for years to come. Works Cited Greenblatt, Alan. "Future of the Music Industry." CQ Researcher 21 Nov. 2003: 989-1012. Web. 25 Mar. 2011. Silverthorne, Sean. "Illegal File Sharing Enhances the Future of the Music Industry." Harvard Business School Working Knowledge (21 June 2004). Rpt. in What Is the Future of the Music Industry? Ed. Roman Espejo. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. At Issue. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 25 Mar. 2011.
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.
Since 1999, the situation around music has been changed drastically. In that year, the novel software “Napster” was released. With this software, people became able to get any file they want easily, sometimes illegally. Some musicians and people in the entertainment industry have tried to exterminate that P2P “Peer to Peer” technology. But it looks as if their efforts are in vain. People are going to use P2P technology more and it might as well become the official way to handle music distribution. The music industry should rather take advantage of the technology than keep trying to exterminate it.
piracy issues over the Internet would cost record companies more money than what they are
The new age of commerce has changed the way trading occurs. Record labels were once sluggish and governed by selfish interest, employing the “Build it, and they will come” concept. A limited amount of content on the web was tested and proved to be a consumer preference even in the 90’s. Today free web content has become the numb that would not just go away, the music industry has taken one of the biggest hits in the process.
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. “Music has been compact and easy to reproduce since the days of sheet music. It is, moreover, intensely social: People want to share it with each other, whether by sending a YouTube URL in the 21st century, trading Grateful Dead tapes in the 20th, or copying sheet music for other singers in the church choir in the 19th” (Berlatsky). 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.
Though many people do think that music piracy is a bad thing, there are some pro arguments, which are very valid. Some say that artists don't feel affected by file sharing and support the fact that piracy creates a bigger fan base for them. Many unsigned artist have produced free records so copyright wasn't an issue. Which could be a new and upcoming thing for artist to d...
...rld. Besides, most bands care about reaching out to fans instead of getting straight up cash. To them, the money isn’t everything. These websites allow fans of music to consume their music for free. This helps more users find out about those certain bands. This seems to outweigh the positive outlooks compared to the negative outlooks. This is why some music consumers are for illegally downloading music.
With the popularization of the MP3 format a few years back came a renewed interest into listening to music. One of the great advantages of the Internet was that it allowed for almost immediate access to information instantaneously. If a song had been recorded, then there was a good chance it could be found on the Internet. The MP3 format allowed listeners to check out new artists and allowed for people to sent songs to each other of artists they thought should be heard. This was a good way for unknown artists to be heard or forgotten artist to be re-discovered. Radio station play lists or MTV’s idea of the next big thing did not fuel this rekindled interest in music. Rather a desire to simply listen to music was all that drove this phenomenon of people downloading music.
... issue of file-sharing, and the decline in music sales due to people downloading free music. Besides using vague information and few statistics, she is also making many assumptions about the facts that she is stating in this article. When she is making too many assumptions, I am not entirely persuaded to steer clear from downloading music for free. Therefore, this is why I do not think this article is effective.
Majority of people believe that any artist makes so much money because they are in the music industry. That is not the case, most artist make very little money off their own songs. The artist gets very little percentage because the company and their label need to take the cut of their share. That is why most artist go on tour because the money they make is theirs. (Knopper 1-7). The record labels such as Sony and companies like Spotify, Youtube and ITunes gets a huge percentage of the money made off the song. In reality the label and company come first while the artist still stays struggling to make a profit. The companies have to pay for all the marketing that goes on for the song to get sold and on top of that they need their profit. Knopper also states, “A decade ago, this disparity in payments was a huge point of contention between artists and the labels they worked for” (5). The last decade artist cared about making money from their songs, now it is all about the over the top tours which rack in billions of
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.
Physical piracy-the copying and illegal sale of hard-copy CDs, videotapes, and DVDs-costs the music industry over $4 billion a year worldwide and the movie industry more than $3.5 billion. These numbers do not factor in the growing (and difficult to measure) problem of Internet piracy, in which music and movies are transferred to digital format and copies are made of the resulting computer file. Journalist Charles C. Mann explains why Internet piracy has the potential to be vastly more damaging to copyright industr...
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?’
Production companies took a bold step forward by uploading their content online. People now are not obliged to buy a full album to listen to one song, for a minimal fee you can buy the track you want, the same goes for movies and electronic publications. The downloaded files though will be digitally protected so that only the person who downloads them can use them, and he can’t share them at home or with friends. Even with this step from production companies, a large portion of people who download music still do it for free. Moreover hackers came up with new ways to remove the digital copyrights so the same as before one downloads music and distributes them around.
Now let’s flash forward back to present day when all that doesn’t happen anymore. Instead of saving of our money and begging our parents to take us to the store to buy a newly released album, we simply get on our computer, go to a website and download the album for free. It doesn’t matter what website it is, whether it is Limewire, Frostwire, or Pirate Bay, people will be happy with their free album. There are still some kids to this day who enjoy going to the store and buying and listening to an album the old-fashioned way but we have to wonder how bad things will get as more and more people are getting equipped with the Internet and the use of downloading music. While the internet might be making life easier for all, the growing use of downloading music on the Internet is growing into a detrimental and illegal problem.