Music Sharing Research Paper

HR 2517, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act is being considered in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. This act would mostly attack peer to peer networks and force the FBI and the U.S. Copyright office to develop anti-piracy programs (AFM, 2005).

Looking at the main headlines for downloading that originate from the RIAA, it can be noticed that the word “illegal” is replaced by “unauthorized”. This is because the courts state that the word “illegal” is considered to be a false statement when making reference to downloading music. When the topic is brought to discussion, two typical responses are shouted from the opposing sides.

When I was in middle school, the biggest way to get music for free was a website named Limewire. Nothing was more exciting than to be able to hear a song on the radio then go home and download it to our desktops. Also cool, was the fact that if one of us didn’t have a song, our friend could simply “burn” it onto a c.d. for us. That was the only way we knew how to get music, aside from going out and buying the whole album. Apple’s iTunes was just starting out and iPods were just being created. Limewire was the way to go. Little did we know that Limewire was illegal and costing singers, songwriters, labels, and everyone associated with just one song, huge amounts of money.

B. Relevance: The Internet has changed the way we all live. It is at our disposal with many advantages and some disadvantages, piracy being one of them. The Stop Online Piracy Act,

DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) is a part of the Copyright Law which prevents internet service providers to be held accountable for copyright infringement that was done by one of the users in their networks. The owners of the materials continuously monitor the internet; they identify individuals who seem to distribute their content without a license. These individuals who did commit the copyright infringement will be held responsible for the damages, not the service provider. DMCA is created to discourage users from freely distributing online creative content without permission from the owner or proper credits given to the owner.

control people from stealing music on the Internet. File sharing and Digital Media make downloading music illegally more widespread. Artists, along with many other people in the music industry lose money due to illegal downloading of music. With websites whose purpose is to share free downloadable music, who would want to pay about a dollar per song to buy music through Itunes? Not only is downloading free music on the Internet easy, it is also very hard to get in trouble for it.

Failure to Protect and Abuses of the Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

had touched on how people are making a hobby of illegally downloading music. I found an article by Amy Adkins titled How Does Illegally Downloading Music Impact the Music Industry. She touches on a few subjects of how illegally downloading music directly affects the music industry. She opens up the article stating that 30 billion songs were illegally downloaded between 2004 and 2009 which is a staggering statistic. Napster came out in 1999 and was a free file sharing website where people were getting music illegally. The music industry has loss $12.5 billion due to the availability of free music. Some people have been taken to court for being found downloading illegally. In her article Adkins reveals that due to the illegal downloading of music

The "business side of music is struggling to generate enough revenue because of the new technology" ("How the Internet Changed Music."). "Most of the people who are part of making a record are paid in royalties, and anytime music changes hands without money being involved, those royalties can’t be paid—which is why so much has been done in recent years to try and reduce music piracy"("How The Internet Changed Music."). iTunes and Amazon has helped by offering cheap downloads for single songs, which allows the customer to only purchase songs they like rather than the entire album ("How the Internet Changed Music."). Spotify and Pandora, who offer either ad-based or paid subscription streaming of their music libraries, are Internet radio stations which have also helped with the piracy problem ("How The Internet Changed

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).

Once upon a time a website provided free music through peer-to-peer file sharing. This was a new technology for the public for a several reasons. The price of home computers had declines dramatically and many people could now afford one. Because of the affordability, many people who had never used a computer suddenly found themselves enmeshed in the new media. Not only could people do their e-mail, do paperwork, play games and use all the different applications they now could also share their files with others. Of course, they wanted to share one of our most valued pleasures, our love of music. The public was not aware that this type of file sharing was illegal because it was not clear on the website disclaimer. Most people did not

With the advent of the Internet, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998 to address the obligations imposed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Treaty. Owners of copyright were concerned that their works would be pirated online, and the existing legal systems in place at the time were insufficient to protect individuals and the industry as a whole. The DMCA was passed in 1998 with the intention of stopping copyright infringers from circumventing anti-piracy protections that have been built into copyrighted works. Specifically, the “Section 1201(a)(1) prohibits the act of circumventing a technological measure used by copyright owners to control access to their works.” Although the DMCA was intended to bolster intellectual property law, it has had a deleterious impact to the industry in the aggregate.

It states that computer programs and databases are explicitly protected as literary works, and therefore are protected by previous copyright laws.2 In 1998, the US expanded the protections given to copyright holders greatly by implementing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA is divided into two major sections. First, it created laws against "circumvention devices" used to get around copyright protection. Second, it protects ISPs from copyright liability as long as they take down the offending information quickly after being notified.3

The internet is seeing a new model against piracy forcing some artists to opt out of electronic sales. The government laws have made music very freely available but most artists are suggesting the government will go over these laws again to bring music back to the level of importance that it is.

Companies like Apple, have decided that it is best to get in with the downloading business. However, an end to the illegal downloading conflict remains to be realized. The RIAA and associated artists continue to wage war against illegal downloaders while computer savvy audiences persist in sharing music files online every day. While it is undoubtedly true that downloading music is a crime, it remains to be proven that it is wrong. Without establishing this principle, most downloader's are likely to continue the activity. Even with new, inexpensive and available means of downloading files, they can still be shared for free online. The rift must be repaired between music lovers who feel that they have been taken advantage of in the past and recording companies and artists who worry about their future livelihood.