Downloading Music Should Be Made Legal Essay example

For many years illegal file sharing and music swapping has been going on. Two very popular cases are the MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster case and the A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster case. Both cases differ in many ways however they also have similarities. A lot of music and other sorts of entertainment are being distributed for free all over the internet. What some people do not think of are the consequences that will be faced if they get caught. Not only is the distributor at risk for getting caught but those of us that download the software illegally can be charged.

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 text A Gift of Fire, Napster “opened on the Web in 1999 as a service that allowed its users to copy songs in MP3 files from the hard disks of other users” (Baase, 2013, p. 192, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The

The issues that will be slugged out in federal district court in San Francisco sound a little too pop culture to be all that serious. How many music CDs are people buying these days in record stores throughout the nation because of Napster? Is the technology that Napster uses legal? Napster is, of course, the wildly popular file-sharing service whose 20 million users have downloaded some half a billion songs--most copyrighted for free. The technology that Napster has brought to music listeners across the globe has allowed the freedom of obtaining music for free and should not be shut down by the entertainment industry's argument in federal court.

I also believe that if you are a true fan of a certain music artist, then you should want to pay the money for their music and help support them in their music career. Downloading songs for free is disrespectful to music artists and takes away the meaning of hard work they put into all of their musical work. I would tell any friend of mine who supported illegal downloading that it’s illegal and if they really wanted to support that music artist, then they would buy the music and prove their support and passion for music by paying for it.

Napster was a music sharing software that was shut down because of copying and distributing unauthorized MP3 files that violated the United States and foreign copyright laws. One of the major reasons why Napster was shutdown is

When thinking about music downloading and streaming we must not only consider legal mediums (which only exist because the practice was illegal after Napster’s failure) such as iTunes and Spotify, we must consider the overwhelming presence of illegitimate or illegal streams and downloading mediums such as FrostWire or YouTube2MP3. The music industry revenue streams have been changed, molded, and affected by the music downloading and streaming world in many ways. The music industry makes money through three ways: album/single sales, royalties, and concert revenues. All three of those streams have been effected in various ways some negative and some positive. Musician, and record label founder, Isaac Hanson said it perfectly; “I think downloading is both saving and killing the music industry at the same time”. His quote is confirmed by the data as well as my This partially confirms my theory that the music downloading has completely destroyed the music

Digital piracy on music has been a majorly disputed affair for the last eighteen years, about whether or not it favors the musical artists or affects them in a negative fashion. One of the many sides of the Digital piracy controversy expounds that it benefits the artist(s) by giving them a great deal of exposure that they may not have received had they not downloaded it for free, which in turn makes for a very significant acquisition in terms of sales on their part.

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).

The question then became “Just because we can get the music we want without paying for it, should we?” (Tyson, 2000, p.1). This issue of illegal downloads, which is also referred to as piracy, has been a hot topic ever since the introduction of Napster. According to Recording Industry Association of America “In the decade since peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.7 billion” (RIAA, 2014).

We all know that downloading pirated music and films is illegal, but what exactly is it? The term piracy refers to the copying and selling of music, films and other media illegally; in other words you are copying and selling copyrighted media without the permission of the original owner (NiDirect, n.d.). With the massive growth of the internet and its ability to store and capture vast amounts of data, we have become much more reliable on information systems in all aspects of life, but it does not come without the risk of information technology being used unethically. With the number of IT breakthroughs in recent years “the importance of ethics and human values has been underemphasised” often resulting in various consequences. Not surprisingly one of the many public concerns about the ethical use of IT is that “millions of people have downloaded music and movies at no charge and in apparent violation of copyright laws at tremendous expense to the owners of those copyrights” (Reynolds, Ethics in Information Technology, 2015). This essay covers the ethical issues of downloading pirated music and films and the impact it has on music corporations and recording and film companies.

Technology is a huge part of our lives today. So much of what we do involves the use of the computer. Things that we never thought would be available to us over the computer are now there, so why not be able to download free music from your favorite artists? Artists as well as the record companies need to see the growth of technology as a good thing, and use it to their advantage so they do not miss out on the inevitable benefits.

Ever since the start of illegal music downloading there has been an ongoing debate. As with any controversy, there are those whose positions stand at one end of the spectrum or the other and also those who are moderate or nonchalant. Many believe that downloading a song without paying for it is not only illegal, but also immoral. None-the less, people continue to download songs, rationalizing that the record companies are getting what they deserve after years of overpriced CD's or that the artists won't really miss the money. Some people are not sure what to make of the situation, sympathizing in some respects with either side. There are several proposed solutions to this problem, but it has become obvious that there is not easy or clear

There are a number of different opinions on whether people think downloading music is legal or illegal. An Internet site, CBBC Newsround, asked for opinions on the subject. Lee, a fifteen-year-old from Newcastle, clearly shows that he sees nothing wrong with downloading music when he wrote, "I think that it doesn't matter if you download music from the net because the singles cost too much in the shops. If the prices where lowered to around $8-10 then CDs may not be downloaded as much. But nothing will stop people from downloading music files illegally; I think people downloading music are not wrong to download music at all"(CBBC).

The internet is the one media that brings up the most controversy in bands spreading their music. Whether they promote it or not their music is downloaded for free on the internet. Most bands do not like that their music is downloaded for free, but they can’t do much to stop it. In a way downloading music for free could bring the musicians even more money. If a person likes one of the songs they downloaded off of the internet they may be inclined to buy the entire album or at least the single. After the person buys the latest album they may even buy earlier albums from the same artist if they like the music enough. The internet has