The first IPod I ever used was the iPod mini released in 2004. My sister had gotten it for her thirteenth birthday. I was fascinated with this mp3 player only because the screen could produce images of the album and the dial was interactive. At this point the only way I could listen to music was through my Walkman or cassette player. CDs had reached their prime around this point. The popularity of mp3s players, especially the apple’s iPod, became more popular than portable CDs or cassette players right around the introduction of Apple’s iPod-Mini, the fifth model of its kind. This is about the same time when iTunes’s began to expand its marketplace and make it very accessible for anybody to find any type of music one desired. As Christmas rolled around the corner all I wanted from my parents was the brand new iPod-Nano. It was smaller than my sister’s mini and held just as much music. Being the spoiled kid I was my parent’s indulged me with a brand new iPod-Nano and a $25 gift card for the iTunes store. 10 year old Jack was unbelievably happy to get $25 dollars worth of songs because that meant I could choose individual songs to buy/listen to without having to buy a cd or album to do that same. After I used up all $25 dollars, I would have to wait for either my birthday or Christmas to buy songs since I never really wanted to buy my own iTunes gift cards due to my frugal behaviors of my youth. I “bought” all my music through gift cards from family members, but I never really used my own money to purchase music. When I was in sixth grade, I was on YouTube looking at funny videos of people doing wacky stuff (the prime years of YouTube) and I came across a video about downloading music for free. In the description of the video,... ... middle of paper ... ...to combat illegal-file sharing by means of education. The RIAA has supported many programs that recently,” educate and inform consumers that illegal music downloading activities harm artists, music companies, and society.”(Jeong) Works Cited Hacker, Scot. MP3 : The Definitive Guide. Sebastopol [Calif.]: O'Reilly, 2000. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 11 Nov. 2013 IFPI. (2009). Digital music report: Key statistics. In International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Jeong, Bong -Keun, and Moutaz Khouja. "Analysis of the Effectiveness of Preventive and Deterrent Piracy Control Strategies: Agent-based Modeling Approach." Computers in Human Behavior 29.6 (2013): 2744-755. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. . Sebastian, Anthony. "A Case For Piracy." PC Magazine June-July 2013: 35-38. Print.
...nd a strong message that the illegal distribution of copyrighted works has consequences, but if individuals are willing to step forward on their own, we want to go the extra step and extend this option" (RIAA 1).
Throughout time, people have resorted to stealing in order to obtain items instead of buying them. It became a problem so consequences were made. Even dating back to the Ten Commandments there were laws against stealing. Recently, theft has become a problem over the internet. Musicians and music companies have lost millions in revenue. Websites such as Napster, The Pirate Bay, and Pandora have made it extremely easy for people, specifically teens, to illegally download and or listen to music for free. Pirating music has become a problem especially because “91 percent of all new music was downloaded illegally over the Internet instead of purchased,” says Logan Lynn from Huffington Post (Lynn). Many, such as the RIAA claim that music piracy is “an ongoing and evolving challenge,” (Who) while others suggest that it is “keeping the music industry alive,” (Issacson).
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)
Since early in the 1990's, software publishers have been concerned about their losses from software piracy. The music recording industry now faces a much larger threat than the software industry. Its very existence is in question as music is extensively pirated through internet downloads and copying CD's. The total cost of pirating music is estimated at $12.5 billion annually, of which $5 billion is a direct cost to the recording industry. The recording industry has experienced dropping profits and has lowered employment because of the effects of music piracy (Blyth, 2008). Many argue that as a result of music piracy, the structure of the industry must change and the era of both big record labels and superstar bands is ending (Dvorak, 2003). Nevertheless, many people, especially college students, do not seem to regard music piracy as unethical. Understanding consumer attitudes may be an important step in developing a solution to the economic problem of music piracy. This study develops a model based on the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) to promote further understanding of attitudes toward music piracy and how those attitudes influence music piracy behavior.
It is first beneficial to know the definition of piracy. Piracy has been characterized multiple ways from multiple disciplines. For the purpose of this paper, I will apply the definition of piracy from the 1982 United ...
An “analyst” was quoted in the case (in 2002) as saying that “people will pay for music on the Internet, eventually.” This person was skeptical of the willingness of consumers to pay for
In this paper, I will attempt to describe the piracy problem in China, discuss how the Chinese government is dealing with it, present the global effect, and finally arrive at what would be an ethical solution to piracy fitting for China's situation.
The United States of America is a free country, then why shouldn’t the internet be free? Why should we have restrictions placed on what we can and cannot do on the internet? Every day, millions of users share files on the internet through numerous online sources. Whether they download music, movies, or software, online file-sharing can give people access to a plentiful amount of information. These files are often free and easily accessible by anyone. The practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information represents file sharing (Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing and Copyright Infringement: Are You Vulnerable?). Conversely many people see file sharing as unlawful. The reproduction or distribution of any copyrighted digital media or information defines internet piracy. Many people see downloading copyright files such as music, movies, books, and software as illegal. Music files, some of the first types of files to be reproduced and distributed through internet sources, contain the file extension .mp3. Several popular file sharing programs were developed in the 1990s and facilitated internet piracy. Big industries try to combat file sharing to help increase their revenue, however internet piracy actually increases revenue of industries and has numerous other benefits (What Is Internet Piracy?). The copy and distribution of digital files increased due to technology (Torr). Internet piracy, considered a problem all over the world, stands as difficult to stop along with other kinds of piracy (What Is Internet Piracy?). Anything can be digitalized and once something becomes digitalized it will be shared all over the internet (Torr). Canadian and European laws allow for the downloading of copyright files for personal us...
Introduction of the iPod: The iPod was introduced into the market just in time for Christmas, 2001. The first iPod was priced at $399. Apple relied on a hard disk for storage instead of flash memory or interchangeable CD-Roms and focused on promoting the uniqueness of the small size, power, and ease of use of the device. This first iPod had a 5 GB storage capacity—which is enough to hold over 1,000 songs—and it worked only on Macs, using iTunes as a music organization and CD-to-iPod conversion tool. iTunes, digital jukebox software that let Mac users import songs from CDs by converting audio files to the MP3 format and storing them on the computer’s hard drive, was introduced in January of 2001. Along with the iPod, Apple announced an enhanced version of iTunes that included a 10-band equalizer with presets, as well as a cross fading feature for smoother transitions from one song to another. An Auto Sync capability facilitated the downloading of music from a Mac to the new portable media device. Once the music was downloaded, Apple promised 10 hours of continuous play from the iPod’s rechargeable lithium battery. The device supported MP3, with bit rates of up to 320kbits/s, as well as AIFF and WAV file formats. Its amplifier could deliver 20-20,000-Hz frequency response. Apple sold 125,000 iPods by the end of December 2001.
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 $3.5 billion. These numbers do not factor in the growing (and difficult to measure) problem of Internet piracy, in which music and movies are transferred to digital format and copies are made of the resulting computer file. Journalist Charles C. Mann explains why Internet piracy has the potential to be vastly more damaging to copyright industr...
Moreover, hackers came up with new ways to remove the digital copyrights so the same as before one downloads music and distributes them around. The industry gets its revenue from selling this content, whether it’s online or in stores, this funds new projects and allows for better products in the future. The public should be aware of this, downloading the content for free, and not buying it will decrease revenue for the companies, stopping them from undertaking future projects. “Production companies should lower the price on their products, I can’t buy music for at least 20$ 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.
...P, 2005, p 23) Around 2005 cell phones and PDAs were referred to as Swiss army knives of gadgets due to the fact they had many functions in one device. All the big phone companies at the time were premiering phones with more mp3 storage than mp3 player, essentially foreshadowing the future. (Dempsey, P, 2005, pg. 23)An average smart phone in the year 2014 can hold around 8-16 gigabytes of data, and if storage is allotted correctly, the phone can hold thousands of mp3s. Any mp3 player trying to have a foothold in the consumer market cannot compete with a device that is an essential part of an average person’s daily life, and a music player. “Smartphones with increasingly high-quality audio and video capabilities have become popular and therefore hamper demand for products in the Audio and Video Equipment Manufacturing industry.” (Krabeepetcharat, T. 2013. p. 8)
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?’
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.
At the dawn of the internet, many things such as books and text became obsolete, due to insufficient monitoring of internet activity and sites. Individuals were able to gain free access to books and publications that normally needed to be bought, or required a fee. This is something that has caused problems for booksellers and publishers. Now, as technology advances, it also begins the decline of music, software, and television industries—but something can be done before it’s too late. Illegal downloading is a problem that affects us all, either directly or indirectly. Many people do not take it too seriously. They have not realized that it is an epidemic; like a disease that keeps growing as people become more knowledgeable about computers and learn more about how software runs. People openly burn music CDs and download music and movies for friends who in turn give it to their friends; it’s a never-ending cycle on illegal practices. The problem started when Napster came out and should have ended when it was shutdown. Unfortunately, not enough has been done to stop the illegal transfer of files. It’s time someone takes full action and ends this detrimental offense.