Downloading A Cd And Stealing It

The digital age has brought innumerable benefits to society throughout the past decade. Many new markets have been created, and routes for innovation have opened, but not all industries have flourished as a result of this era. Music piracy, which is the illegal act of obtaining or distributing sound recordings without the owner’s permission, is theorized to be the ultimate downfall of the music industry. CD sales have plummeted and caused the music moguls to panic, but their worriedness might be narrow sighted. Through speculative research, it can be surmised that the act of piracy can positively influence a musician’s career, allow for new opportunities and niches in the market, and have little side effects to anyone else in the business.

In 1999, Shawn Fanning and his little program called Napster created quite a stir in society. Napster's software allows music listeners to open pieces of their personal hard drives to everyone using Napster, sharing whatever MP3 songs they have already downloaded or stored. At any time, thousands of people are online, sharing hundreds of thousands of songs, many of which are technically illegal to download without the permission of the copyright holders. [1] This led to a lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America, with the rock group Metallica as its frontman. In this case, several issues were brought up, one of which was the right of the creator of the music to control what happens with

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), 30 billion songs were illegally downloaded between 2004 and 2009. Even with sites like iTunes and Rhapsody offering legal downloads, peer-to-peer file sharing still exists. Illegally downloading music has had a significant impact on the music industry resulting in a loss of profits and jobs, and changing how music is delivered to the masses. (Adkins, n.d.) Showing that even having the ethically correct option P2P sharing of illegal media is still thriving. The RIAA reports that music sales in the United States have dropped

With technology so readily available there are many people and companies who have participated in similar illegal activities. The original copyright law did not take into consideration the digital area. By implementing Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) it has tightened up the protection of things online and in the digital arena.

The evidence claims, "Illegal downloading is, of course, a real problem. People who work hard to produce creative works are entitled to enjoy legal protection to reap the benefits of their labors. And if others want to enjoy those creative works, it's reasonable to make them pay for the privilege." Even though this might be true, it can't be classified as theft. The article explains, "But framing illegal downloading as a form of stealing doesn't, and probably never will, work. We would do better to consider a range of legal concepts that fit the problem more appropriately: concepts like unauthorized use, trespass, conversion and misappropriation." Even though people who illegally download media should be punished, companies couldn't use words like "theft" to accuse someone because media isn't tangible and can't be

It is believed that illegal downloading does not affect the music industry and that recording artists are rich, so there is nothing wrong with grabbing a

Christopher Jones’ article “Metallica Rips Napster” is in an early summary of the 2000, Metallica v. Napster, Inc., California lawsuit. The lawsuit included the peer-to-peer file sharing website, Napster, and University of Southern California, Indiana University, and Yale University. Most people don’t even think about file sharing, in this day and age it is generally an everyday behavior. It is very simple for a document or file to be shared between friends or even strangers over the internet. However, in April of the year 2000 the heavy metal band Metallica and the peer-to-peer audio file sharing website Napster were in the center of a lawsuit that would change how online file sharing works forever.

The way Napster worked is by searching other peers "shared" files. Let's say that someone was searching for any song by the band Metallica, the search would report back what is available to be downloaded. Once you double-click on that first mp3 that you would like to download, you officially become "fair game" for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). After the birth of Napster, there was an explosion of programs that tried to leech off their fame. The next big thing comes when a new and more efficient program to share files emerges. During 2002, a program called BitTorrent arises. This program revolutionized peer-to-peer downloading for many reasons. First and foremost, because of the percentage of broadband users, downloading a music file has become an extremely quick and painless task. Using Napster with a phone-line connection, it would take an average of half an hour to download one song. With BitTorrent and the increase of broadband users, it takes a matter of minutes (if even) to download the entire album. But why is BitTorrent so successful? BitTorrent's successfulness is attributed to the method users share their files. Instead of downloading the file from one user, BitTorrent breaks up the file into thousands of pieces and takes a part of the file from each user that is willing to share it. For example, let's say that there are 10 other peers downloading the T.V. show Lost, 11

Is not produced the same way as movies or video games: music comes from an artist, and you paying money for that music helps to support that artist. For every album you pirate you steal a dollar from the artist, which definitely hurts, but you're really hurting the business behind the artists more than the artists themselves. No one can deny that album sales are an important source of income for musicians; however, it's not nearly as big a money-maker as many people believe. In actuality bands make most of their money on tour or selling things like t-shirts and stickers. If you truly wanted to support that artist you should buy some merchandise or see them live; otherwise, you're just feeding money to iTunes and their record label. In an interview with the Times Online in the UK Lady Gaga explained how touring is more important than album sales. On the other hand, piracy and file sharing can also lead to popularity, if your music is good, people will pirate it, they'll listen to it, and they'll spread it, creating a fan

When people illegally download music they are robbing the artists of royalties. The fact that people are increasingly stealing music begs a further question of how slippery this slope is. Will the music industry stop making money altogether because people can just find a way to get their music illegally? While this is the far extreme it is important to note the far reaching implications of what this could mean for the industry. Striking losses of profits would cripple artists and everyone involved in producing or distributed the music. An example of how the music industry is losing profits on royalties is evident with the declining us of CDs. Today, the CD is becoming an outdated and inferior product that only true fans of an artist will seek out. Another example is when music is being purchased legally online. When consumers purchase online music it is almost always going to be a lower cost. As a consumer, you have the option to just buy the songs you like.

The digital music industry is forever evolving. The problem of piracy has been created when people began to illegally download music. Music should not be pirated. Piracy can be partially reduced by using various advertising messages encouraging students not to pirate. Music producers should be a given the right to their music. Producers and advertising agencies can work hand in hand to fight the battle of music piracy.

Napster, a free online file sharing network, allowed peers to share digital files directly with each other by way of connections through its software and system. The no cost peer-to-peer sharing gained popularity, particularly with trendy music. A&M Records took notice of the free digital music downloads and brought suit against Napster for direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringements (Washington University School of Law, 2013).

Like said earlier the internet gives you a lot more access to music, but a lot of times that access is abused by people copying and pirating the music through piracy sites and apps. One of the most used piracy apps was LimeWire. LimeWire was a free peer-to-peer file sharing program that was ran on most computer programs. Eventually, Big labels caught onto that their music was being downloaded for free, so they took it to court and Limewire had to stop distributing the LimeWire software .This is causing lots of artist to lose money because people are no longer buying their music; instead they are downloading it for free. This is making lots of artist to do more live performances to make the money back in another way. Even though streaming music isn’t piracy some big artist like Taylor Swift has begun to speak out about the services and withholding their music from the services, because they feel the payment models are unfair and that these services are cannibalizing their album sales. Other artist do praise the services because it delivers a legal alternative to piracy, but with all the illegal sharing of music the artist and their labels are still missing out on a lot of money. Most people who are involved with making a song are paid in royalties, and when the music changes hands without money being involved, those royalties cannot be

Ever since 18-year-old Shawn Fanning created Napster in his Northeastern University dorm room in 1999, downloading and sharing music online has become one of the most popular things to do on the Internet today. But why wouldn't it? Getting all your favorite songs from all your favorite artists for free, who wouldn't want to start sharing music? The answer to that question are the people who feel that stealing from the music industry is not morally right, because that is exactly what every person who shares music is doing. People who download music think it's something they can get away with but now it might be payback time to a lot of those people.

Now lets take a look at the legal issues involved with file sharing. In the recording industry, there are two copyright laws involved. The first one is the copyright of the musical composition, which deals with the lyrics and musical notes. This is usually owned by the songwriter or music publisher.4 The second law is the copyright in sound recording, which deals with the recording of the performer singing or playing a given song. This is usually owned by the record company.5 The law that is violated with electronic file sharing is the second one. Titles 17 and 18 of the U.S. Code protect copyright owners from the unauthorized reproduction, adaptation or distribution of sound recordings, as well as certain digital performances to the public.6 So, from the legal clauses, it can be interpreted that users of popular online sites such as Napster are engaging in unauthorized distribution of sound recordings. The online infringement of copyrighted music can be punished with several years in prison. 7