Piracy : Asset Not Annoyance

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

The music industry has undergone radical changes since the end of the 1990’s, largely a function of the internet and its effects on sales and copyright. Besides placing artists and their music on the world stage, the internet also permitted the downloading of music from free-file- exchange networks. A parallel and equally worrisome, phenomenon is record pirating, a practice made easier by the proliferation of CD burners and access to high speed internet. Unauthorized downloading and pirating circumvent intellectual property laws and result in reduced sales. “In Atlantic Canada, average annual household expenditures on CDs and audio cassettes dropped by 27 percent between 1996 and 2001, from $96.00 to $70.00.”

Music piracy has been detrimental to the music industry and I believe it will only get worse with time. Music has become much easier for people to steal off the internet without paying the artist a dime. Technology continues to improve exponentially every year, because of these improvements in technology piracy has become much more accessible to music pirates. Overall album sales have gone down from 500 million units sold in 2007 to 200 million units sold in 2016. If this trend continues it will eliminate some of the smaller artists who depend on album sales to pay for studio time and other expenses. These lesser known artists also usually lack the funds to try to prosecute these music pirates and get their music off of the sites they are being

In “The Music Industry Has Been Revolutionized,” Greg Kot explains musicians in the music industry are experiencing unwanted change around the world from technology since the popularity of file-sharing websites available online. Consumers of music don’t want to pay for music because of the increased availability, although not doing so prevents revenue for musicians. Explained in Kot’s article, increased popularity of file-sharing has made access to music so convenient to the point where the music industry is confused about how to respond to the lack of revenue while still keeping music readily available for consumer use. New technology has allowed the music industry more opportunities in being efficient with producing music. Furthermore, it

Online piracy doesn’t only necessarily harm the music industry but harms other industries that are available in an economy, such as the movie industry. For instance, in the years of 2009 and 2010, a research study showed an estimate of 12,600 jobs and $1.8 billion were lost throughout the entire Canadian economy due to the piracy of movies let alone piracy of other content (source). The physical recorded music worldwide was exceling in the 1990’s, having profits as high as $37 billion in 1999 however that number significantly drops to $25 billion by 2007. Several organizations agreed that the drastic decrease in revenue not solely in Canada but worldwide, is due to online piracy. It has caused songwriters lose their jobs and staying without works and is demotivating new artists into the industry since it is a much harder process now to get signed into the business now. Furthermore, the technological change that keep occurring has reduced how effective the degree of protection that copyright laws have ever since

The downside of file sharing brings in more problems such as viruses and hackers to many people's computer systems. With the files being in a person's hard drive, the risk of downloading from another person's computer and acquiring a virus unknowingly is growing greater and greater. More people are able to get into a person's system and complete annihilate a person's hard drive. Even Internet security has become a major issue and identity theft is on the rise. Regulating such sites (including Napster) is important to the consumer. The legal responsibilities of the music companies and the government are far greater than they had expected by ensuring the safety of the communities they serve.

Music piracy is an infringement that involve the copying or selling of creative works that which the copyright owner, composer, or artist did not consent to. Before the invention of newer technology that allowed for the piracy process to become less difficult, music piracy was much easier to control. With this new and improved technology of the 21st century, users of the web began adding media files to the internet, which made all previous difficulties substantially less challenging. It was much easier for people with little to no knowledge of technology and old piracy methods to gather media files. Piracy may seem petty, but the effects are major. Not only is it illegal, when music is copied and or shared the value decreases with each download.

When not at the playground with her friends, "Biggie Brianna" is trading music files from her home in New York. The little girl received one of the 261 lawsuits filed by the RIAA She may look like a sweet and innocent child, but the RIAA says it's only going after major copyright violators at the moment. So you make the call. Peer-to-peer file sharing advocates received a boost in their ongoing battle against music industry executives when Jupiter Media Metrix released a study indicating that Internet file-sharing traffic volume actually increases music sales.

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).

Introduction: Setting the trend for the future, the distribution and consumption of recorded music transformed dramatically with the launching of Apple’s iTunes in 2001. The proliferation of online music subscription services and other music sharing services exerted a great pressure on the conventional music distribution business model. Combined with this transformation, piracy of digital music had a profound impact on the whole industry. These worsening conditions in the market place for recorded music forced both established and upcoming new artists to experiment with new ways of selling their music.

Producers of musical content cannot undo the adverse effects that piracy has had on the industry. Because of the internet and the way individuals have manipulated it to obtain music, many people are unwilling to change their habits. Here lies the issue between the producer and the consumer. Acts like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) work against the incentive of many consumers by telling them that they cannot do what maximizes their utility. Producers are thus working against the likings of the consumer. This is wrong.

“A decade’s worth of music file sharing has made it clear that the people it hurts are the creators... and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.”

• A new possible method of keeping the music industry profitable may be by legalising file sharing and giving artists / bands control over their own music. (Therefore working with a collapsed copyright system.) (Appendix 7).

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.

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.