What Is Piracy Detrimental To The Music Industry?

Illegal Piracy has been a problem for many musical artist. The law is not really enforced on piracy. Many people get away with it and very few get prosecuted with a fine . Musicians spend time to make music for people and to make money for their own reasons, like for food or clothes. Movie makers are also victims of Illegal Piracy, along with many others, piracy to them should be

It affects more than they realize - Piracy is not a victimless crime. The mainstream media needs to do its part and demonize those that offend. This would be the quickest way to stop the flow of these stolen materials from having a broader reach and hope to deter those who distribute. Remember the popularity of music group Milli Vanilli? No? That’s because after their lip-syncing scandal they were attacked by the press and were unable to continue recording without public backlash. I hope that this would work similarly for these vile and deplorable individuals. In conjunction with the federal punishment, the individuals should receive a lifetime ban from listening to all music, and receive another large fine if they are caught in violation.

How did music piracy start? The music industry is going through yet another change. The music app Napster has returned and many people like how you can listen to a free sample of the recently released music. A lot of music industries have lost revenue due to music piracy for the past few years. The RIAA stated that music recording industry Napster lost $4.2 million worldwide from piracy (Witherbee).

In February of 2001, the once small college based program now had over 30 million users downloading and sharing music. Even after being shut down in 2003, file sharing still lives on. In a survey done by Digital Media, about 70% of people with the internet have once downloaded music illegally. But is it really hurting the industry as much as people say it is? The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America, an organization that deals with music sales) sure thinks so. They say that the recording industry loses 300 plus million to pirated music each year and that it is “a very real threat to the livelihoods of not only artists and record label employees but also thousands of less celebrated people in the music industry.” They believe it has caused so much devastation in the industry that they have no choice but to prosecute file sharers and bring them to court. Harvard University and the University of North Carolina beg to differ, they say that for every 5,000 downloads, one physical CD is lost and though it does hurt the industry, they consider illegal downloading a “small contribution to the overall slide in album sales” and also states that with the percent of music lost to pirated downloads, the percent of legal downloads has grown – which shows a possible positive effect to illegal downloading.

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.

If people will return to piracy, then artists will make less money than if you streamed it. Artists will also stop trying to make good music and not care. Possibly, artists will stop making music altogether. Streaming is liked by the public. It is also cheap and widley available.

Like you, I also recall going on sites like Limewire to listen to music. Truthfully, at that time, I didn't see the harm in it. It wasn't until I heard about the RIAA suing the college kids when I understood the seriousness of piracy. I remember having discussions with people about this and recall that some would say, the downloading of the music was the equivalent of trying something on before you buy it. I suppose that some people may look at it like this but surely the RIAA was not. Also, according to "The Conversation", "although piracy negatively affects the recorded music industry, it has a positive impact on other areas such as live music"(2014). Somme may say that piracy drives the consumer to purchase tickets to see these artists live

There are many artists who work hard to make their products but are rewarded with lesser than what the would have made if there were no piracy. In source 4 “A Musician’s rant”, “It would be fabulous if I could share my music for free, but believe it or not I have to eat (Source 4)"! If people were enforcing the law and making music available for everybody and not just people who are well off, then the others would not have to copy their products. The fact that poverty is an enormous issue in the world raises gigantic flags. This is why most of the world (those millions that were mentioned earlier) are copying music for their enjoyment what else would they be doing; riding in their Mercedes Benz collecting their 50,000 checks every month? Alma Mandelssohn conjures, “Let’s make sure that music and other files are easily available for low prices on legitimate sites, and that when people download from bootleg sources they get fined a small amount, but every single time (Source

A large number of individuals think that since it has become so easy to access computers and websites that allow for illegal downloading of music that the music industry is losing out on money. This goes along with the concern stated above in regards to My Free MP3. Does having this power hinder the artist that created the music? Does it hurt the industry as a whole? Actually, it has been found that it would take more than five thousand downloads of a song to reduce album sales by one copy (Cusic, D., Faulk, G., & Lambert, R. pp. 18).

However, music piracy also brings benefits to the music industry. At first, it is a way access to get the departed music that is no longer to republish. As a result of the way of constructing contracts, the music–record labels are not holden by artists themselves that their new label is not allowed to produce as the old one, and if the old label decides not to republish anymore or release the songs, the music is generally dead. Music downloading is the only way for most people to get these “dead” songs. In the second place, pirating music

Thomas F. Lee, President, American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (2015) stated, “No one is eager to see copyright infringement lawsuits against individuals. But copyright infringement hurts many thousands of other individuals. Most musicians who depend on CD sales and legal downloading are not wealthy mega-celebrities. They are artists struggling to succeed without a ‘day job’. They are ordinary session musicians who depend on union-negotiated payments that fall drastically when sales fall”. The Livelihood of smaller and lesser known artist are being affected because the illegal download of their music, the illegal download of their music means that there not getting any royalty causing them to suffer financially .This surge in the illegal download off music means that many smaller and less recognizable musicians will now suffer because of the difficult to make money in the industry because of the illegal download off music. “In October, members of 5.7 million U.S. households downloaded at least one unauthorized song using P to P services, according to NPD, which tracks PC usage from 11,000 households” (www.pcworld.about.com,2015) Many artist are having their songs downloaded causing them to lose money, and without the incentive there is no reason for them to keep recording. Artist lose lot of money to illegal downloads and with them not making any money many small band will stop putting out albums. The illegal downloading of music it taking away the incentive for many artists this lowers the amount of new talent coming out and is seriously affecting the music industry. With no incentive and the livelihood and wealth off the music

For over a decade now music piracy has threatened the music industry by costing it money, and stealing from it. Peer-to-peer file sharing has been somewhat of a red flag for the music industry ever since Napster, a once highly used file swapping network, came into the picture. Napster and the websites similar to it made it possible for people to trade files downloaded onto their computer through the internet for free. What that means is that someone who had downloaded the new NSYNC album could give it away to however many people could access it and no one had to pay a penny. The big deal about that is the fact that the artists who worked for months to make that album did not get paid. The only money they saw was from the people who actually went out and physically paid for the CD.

In the recent year, illegal downloads have been dominating the music industry not only in the UK but worldwide. In 2015, numbers showed that a massive 62% of people in the UK either illegally download or steam music online, this affect artist’s income when it comes to illegally downloading music as when they see how much money they have made it will be plummeting each month. Throughout the UK many people were surveyed and results showed that, 26% of the people surveyed downloaded music illegally online. In the USA, The Recording Industry Association of America (also known as RIAA) reported that music sales have dropped massive 42% ever since illegal download was invented. This can affect the music industry in many ways some may be that if illegal downloads keep rising it will make sales lower and potentially make it harder for artists getting worldwide recognition and will make it harder for new upcoming artist to get signed by record labels. Spotify, the world largest streaming service, could be affected by people illegally downloading music as Spotify will end up losing money which will be used to pay artist royalties but won’t be able

Every adult over the age of 18 has seen the changes the music industry has gone through since the introduction of the internet, digital downloading, and online streaming. These adults have heard that Tapes, CDs, MP3s, and the internet were all going to destroy the industry. Has the internet destroyed the music industry yet? According to Ian Morris, Author of the article, "Technology is Destroying the Music Industry, Which is Great for the Next Taylor Swift," music is changing, but the only thing the internet is destroying is the record companies. He explains that this change in the music industry is a good thing for the future. Morris talks about the roles the record label plays and why the labels are on the way out. The biggest change in music since the internet was the development of Napster. In 2014, Napster marked fifteen years after the rise and fall of their online file sharing platform. The article "15 years After Napster: How the Music Service Changed the Industry", by Alex Suskind, talks about the failed program ,Napster, and why the biggest change in the music industry made record labels scared. So what does this all mean and why should people care? Well, for starters when it comes to musicians and record labels, the record labels make most of the money, as well as most of the decisions. Music was never meant to be something that was used for money, it was made for enjoyment and should be shared without extensive rules and

Online piracy is illegal and people shouldn't be doing or even thinking of stealing something that's not yours. People need to make money in order to eat, but can't if others commit online piracy. Musicians take time in creating a song and sacrifice a lot for their song to be pushed forward in the music industries. Musicians need to eat and be able to afford their house, but can't if other people are stealing their products. Online piracy can also affect others by showing that you're stealing something that not yours and basically taking credit for it. Main point is that stealing is bad and it wouldn't get you anywhere in the world.