In the past two decades, the music industry has been and still is facing a major battle against online piracy and trying to make successful baby steps towards recovery. As a result of this illegal activity conducted allegedly or not, led the recording and distributing companies into economic shock. As stated in 2011 Frontier Economics article, in 2008 “the total commercial value of global music piracy was estimated at close to $40 billion” (qtd. in Stop the Music!). In fact, as reported in International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) Digital Music Report in 2008, “in the United States alone, the economic impact to the music industry-in terms of lost revenue-has been estimated at $3.7 billion annually” (qtd. in Stop the Music!). According to Danny Upshaw and Laurie Babin, in 2009 the IFPI estimates that 95% of all downloaded songs are copied illegally (14). The increase of online piracy caused by economic efficiency, ease of accessibility of the digital files on the Internet, social norms, lack of knowledge of the laws related to music production, and lack of ethical consciousness mainly among the younger generation of our society is causing a major problem for the music industry. As the entire economy dips into a depression in the United States, people’s drive to save money is contributing towards increased numbers of illegal music downloading, which has a tremendous effect on revenues in music industry. This negligent act is occurring strictly along the younger generation, and college students. Brian Sheehan, James Tsao, and James Pokrywczynski are describing that more than 1 billion illegal songs are downloaded by college students (309). Furthermore, they state that according to Brittain, in 2006 college student... ... middle of paper ... ...urce Complete. Web. 25 Oct. 2013. Sheehan, Brian, James Tsao, and James Pokrywczynski. "Stop The Music!." Journal Of Advertising Research 52.3 (2012): 309-321. Business Source Complete. Web. 26 Oct. 2013. Tyler, Neil S. "Music Piracy And Diminishing Revenues: How Compulsory Licensing For Interactive Webcasters Can Lead The Recording Industry Back To Prominence." University Of Pennsylvania Law Review 161.7 (2013): 2101-2150. Business Source Complete. Web. 25 Oct. 2013. Upshaw, Danny, and Laurie A. Babin. "Music Downloading: Competing Against Online Piracy." International Journal Of Business & Public Administration 7.1 (2010): 14-26. Business Source Complete. Web. 25 Oct. 2013. Woolley, Darryl J. "The Cynical Pirate: How Cynicism Effects Music Piracy." Academy Of Information & Management Sciences Journal 13.1 (2010): 31-43. Business Source Complete. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.
The Web. 26 Feb. 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/oct/10/music-streaming-songwriters-youtube-pandora>. Luckerson, Victor. The "Business & Money" Business Money Revenue Piracy Down Has the Music Industry Finally Turned a Corner Comments.
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.
Witherbee, Amy, and Marlanda English. “Music Piracy Costs Billions.” Points of View Reference Senter. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
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.
...ng-term cost of hurting the artists they most admire, and new talent” (Aksomitis). In the United States, roughly 76.2 million songs were stolen off the internet illegally. This number grew by 89% in 2006 where 144 million songs were stolen. However, in Japan only 1.1 million songs were stolen. Apparently, music piracy is only an issue in the United States.
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
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.
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...
The first reason why downloading and uploading copyrighted materials from the Internet should be legal is that downloading copyrighted materials positively affects the economy. The European Commission Joint Research Center reported that the profits of music companies would be 2% lower if uploading and downloading copyrighted materials were banned. However, music companies are able to acquire more profits despite illegal downloading because many people tend to purchase CDs or DVDs after watching or listening to copyrighted materials for free. Moreover, the research showed that people who download music illegally spent more money to buy music than people who did not download illegally. In addition, research conducted by the Swiss government informed that one-third of Swiss people downloaded copyrighted materials from the Internet because personal use of copyrighted materials is legal in Switzerland. Even though there is a fact that many people can download copyrighted materials from the Internet legally in Switzerland, the amount of money that people spend to buy copyrighted materials is not f...
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.
Harwood, E. (May 2004). Staying Afloat in the Internet Stream: How to Keep Web Radio from Drowning in Digital Copyright Royalties, Federal Communications Law Journal, 56(3), 673-697.
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...
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.
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.