Distributed in Hanson Hall, and all freshmen dorm, the survey was very straightforward and asked questions dealing with how often students used file-sharing programs and whether or not they felt it was ethical to do so. Other questions dealt with alternative options to downloading music and the legal action that ensues doing so. After conducting the survey, I came to the expected conclusion that the majority of students download music regularly. All but one of the students surveyed stated that they download music off a P2P (people to people) file-sharing program. Several people also, however, admitted that they felt that the piracy of music online is unethical.
This college dropout's program makes it very easy to listen to your favorite music for free, and this has the recording industry up in arms while many artists are pro-Napster.7 In the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, the U.S. Government declared it legal to share music, and make recordings of it, as long as it is not used commercially or to make a profit. The recording industry could benefit from Napster's distribution model, and Napster could benefit from the copyrights of the major record labels. Both the recording industry and Napster could benefit from working with one another while revolutionizing the way music is distributed to consumers. Surfacing in late 1999, Napster is a relatively new Internet service that could be considered a "listen before you buy it" service. Napster was developed by an eighteen year-old college freshman, Shawn Fanning, as a way to share files on the Internet, specifically digital MP3 music files.
I handed out questionnaires to other students at Purdue and observed Melara’s class for about two weeks. In addition, I interviewed Saree Strom, a student in the honors section of Psychology 120. The class of Melara’s that I studied meets every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between 4:30 and 5:20 PM. Class is held in the giant lecture hall on the first floor of the Lily Hall of Sciences on State Street. There are about five hundred students in this section, and the seats are set up like a stadium so that each row is higher than the one below it.
The struggling musicians who aren’t making millions from one CD release are the avid supporters of Napster. Richardson is promoting the good side of the software, and trying to make upset artists understand that this program is for the little guys. “Its software aims to make finding MP3 files easier one the Net” (RIAA). Another advantage of the program is that it allows finding music files easier instead of having to search the entire World Wide Web. Napster is an MP3 file-sharing program that enables users to share their music with one another.
music. The biggest file-sharing networks have vowed to continue to keep music ?free? while protecting their users from the RIAA?s retribution. Body The origins of file sharing Prior to file sharing, music lovers were forced to pay nearly twenty dollars for an album. Some of them simply accepted the prices and went on to enjoy their favorite music while others chose to purchase recordable audio cassettes in addition to albums and copy an entire album onto one cassette.
Nearly 75 percent of college students have downloaded music from the Net, according to a recent study by Greenfield Online, an international research firm. Nearly two-thirds of the 1,135 college students surveyed say they download music as a way to sample music before buying it. So does this prove that the artists are actually benefiting out of Napster as people will hear there songs and possibly go and buy there singles. Many people believe music labels should have been donating money to Napster users, not threatening to sue them. And so the much-libelled Napster users are dedicated music buyers, quick to reach for their wallets.
Napster links music off of people's computers and permits other Napster users to recover them from whomever might be connected to the Internet at that time (Graham 1D). Napster has been nothing but a success in the eyes of many. USA Today author Jefferson Graham explains, "To its fans, Napster is the greatest radio station in the world, a place to pick up new music for nothing" (Graham 1D). Napster has taken the MP3 technology of compressing music files loaded on computers hard drives, and used it to its benefit. We can download MP3s in less than two minutes (Gibeaut 39).
Although this technology was already available through local networks, Shawn envisioned a way to make this network technology possible for the average college student like himself. What Shawn didn't envision however, was the lawsuits and court injunctions that now plague his company. These lawsuits have stemmed from Napster allegedly violating copyright laws set forth by the music industry. Seeing that Napster has approximately 64 million users worldwide, the company is being charged with allowing "rampant music piracy" (Evangelista 2001). Although this may be true, I believe that Napster is doing more good to our society than bad.
In 1998, a program that played MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 files called Winamp was offered for download on the Internet as a free music player. Soon, people all over the world were copying music files off of CDs and converting them to MP3 files, then making them available to others over the Internet. In 1999, music piracy off... ... middle of paper ... ...stry Association of America and other sensible people continue to fight against it, piracy will always be contained at least to a diminutive degree. Works Cited “Fewer Than 1 in 10 Teenagers Believe that Music Piracy is Morally Wrong.” The Barna Group, LTD. n.p. 26 April 2004.
Supporting Artists By Downloading Music Have you ever listened to your favorite song on the radio and recorded it? I remember when I would sit next to the radio and listen to it for hours at-a-time, just so that I could record my favorite songs off the radio. Now with computers and the Internet, I would go all over the Internet to look for songs, but only some of the time I was successful. Then I ran into a program called Napster, which made my music search much easier. Have you ever download free music off the Internet?