Preview

Effects of Illegal Music Downloading on the Music Industry

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1268 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Effects of Illegal Music Downloading on the Music Industry
Effects of Illegal Downloading on the Music Industry Illegal downloading is commonly known as piracy, it describe that the steeling music from artists, songwriters, musicians, record label employees and others whose hard work and great talent who make music possible. Nowadays, downloading music is available for everyone on internet. However, it is still illegal. Downloading music on internet is what most people are doing because they do not have to pay, and they can choose only the songs they want to have. Unlike CDs which we have the whole album which might contain the songs that we do not want to listen to, plus we have to pay for it. However, it is not always a good thing, it might be good for the people who download the music, but what about the music industry? Is it killing the industry, or does it have profits on it? This paper will discuss both pros and cons of piracy downloading on the Music Industry. One of the most important influences that internet piracy has had on the music industry is the sale of retail CDs. Until the past few years, CD sales were one of the key things that music industry insiders used in order to find out which musicians and albums were the most popular with the public. As the world’s technology has been growing, it made the digital music and internet piracy growing too, sales of retail CDs dropped amongst younger consumers to such an extent that the best selling CDs on the market began to bear very little resemblance to the music that was actually popular with the young listeners that form the backbone of the music industry. For example, Bob Dylan’s album Modern Times quickly became the number one best seller when it was released in 2006, despite the fact that none of his tracks were highly requested on mainstream radio programs or popular with younger listeners. The most well-known case that involves internet piracy and the music industry was when a group of major recording companies took peer-to-peer file

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Advancements in today's technology have allowed users to access and use computer programs, movies, music and other multimedia for which they have not purchased. Technological advancements are coming along at such a quick pace that the enforcement of copyright laws cannot keep pace. Music piracy exploded in the late 1990's and caused groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to crack down on companies such as Napster that provided that provided free music downloads. The number of lawsuits against individuals who illegally download music has escalated to the point that people are now switching to legal internet sites that sell music downloads. The ethicality of this issue has touched many people throughout the world…

    • 2646 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Accounting and Global Piracy

    • 3664 Words
    • 15 Pages

    The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of facing the piracy problem in the music industry and also to explore it from the accounting point of view so that the audience can get a clear understanding on how to treat ‘costs’ relating to actions in facing piracy. This paper will also identify what defines and determine an item to be an asset and an expense. Its criteria will also be thoroughly discussed. Also the…

    • 3664 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The music recording industry is in trouble. For several years now, sales of new and popular music have steadily declined and show no sign of changing. The record companies are quick to blame the growing popularity of the Internet; music is being traded in a digital form online, often anonymously, with the use of file-sharing programs such as Morpheus, KaZaA, and Imesh, to name a few. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) succeeded in disbanding the pioneer Internet file-sharing program, Napster, but is facing confrontation with similar programs that are escaping American copyright laws. While there is an obvious connection between declining popular music sales and increasing file sharing, there is more going on than the RIAA wants to admit. I will show that the recording companies are overpricing their products, and not sufficiently using the Internet as an opportunity to market and sell their products. I shall begin by describing in greater detail the problem that the recording companies are facing, as well as the growing epidemic of online music trading. From there, I will show the correlation between the two and describe the other factors affecting record sales, and how these trends could be turned around to help the industry.…

    • 5602 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Up on Downloading

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Elaine McArdle said, “The music industry is struggling with a full blown crisis”. What could possibly be pushing the music industry into a crisis one might ask, illegally downloading free music. In the essay, Up on Downloading, three Harvard Law School professors are trying to come up with different solutions to this problem that is occurring. Now that our technology has become so advanced, many people are figuring out ways to cheat the system, and when people are not paying for the music they have downloaded, the artist is not getting paid. Artists are not the only one losing money but everyone involved producing the music is losing money as well. There is also less and less people going out and buying CD’s. I could probably not even remember the last time I purchased a CD. So how are the artists and producers suppose to make money when we are stealing from them? Zittrain, Nesson, and Fisher believe they could possibly have the solution to save the music industry.…

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Ruben on Piracy

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In “ In Defense of Piracy(Well, Some Piracy)”, Matthew Ruben states that it is alright to download mp3 in certain circumstances. He reasons firstly that the current marketing strategies of music are making people paying for albums they would not enjoy. He also reasons that between a dilemma of paying unreasonable price for a single and downloading, there is nothing ethically wrong to download than buying a whole CD just for a track. Thus, he reckons that pirating mp3 single can be a form of protest to the music industry on resisting hype. Though these reasons seem attractive, especially to the general public, Ruben has not taken into account of the devastating effects of piracy has on to the music industry and that piracy is flat, adulterated theft (Gary Locke, 2010).…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Our world is changing at an exponential pace with new technology. The pop music industry of today has had to adjust to the shift from CDs to digital music files. Of all media, music is the most easily pirated and record companies have had to find ways to entice people to buy music legally again to support the artists and producers who make these songs.…

    • 597 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The process of being cool

    • 708 Words
    • 2 Pages

    111.1 million files of music are pirated per day worldwide. People need to realize that online piracy is illegal. The artists get taken advantage of when people commit this crime. There are many risks that piracy entails. Many people would say online piracy is not a big deal because everyone participates in it, but they would be wrong. For these reasons, people should be prosecuted for online piracy.…

    • 708 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sherman, Chris. "Napster: Copyright Killer or Distribution Hero?" Online. November 2000. Expanded Academic Index. February 24, 2001.…

    • 1159 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Music is a great place to show creativity and be yourself, right? But what happens whenever an artist pours all of his creativity into a song, and he puts it up for sale. Potential sales, in a perfect market, would be pretty high. But introduce file-sharing, and the sales are cut by about one third of the original amount. File-sharing is an activity in which one user downloads something from another user’s files. Online piracy stems from this, as one person downloads something, either legitimately or illegitimately, and then puts it up on some kind of site for others to download and use. Piracy comes into play when it is downloaded by another, and may even potentially find its way into the hands of someone who wants to claim it as their own,…

    • 1107 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    When speaking economically, the digital music sector of the international music industry is undoubtably the most important sector in the industry. Within the last decade, music has seen cardinal changes in the way both major and independent labels distribute their products. An industry that once relied on Payola 's and mass distribution of physical records and CD 's now relies heavily on the power of the internet. The first instance of mass distribution of music through the internet was by the service Ritmoteca.com in 1998 [1]. Ritmoteca had a library of over 300,000 songs, offering individual songs for 99 cents each and albums for $9.99. After signing distribution deals with many major music labels such as Warner Bros, Sony, and Universal, it was clear that the market for selling music online was opening up. The year following Ritmoteca 's inception, the peer-to-peer file sharing service named Napster opened its virtual doors to listeners across the world at the price of nothing [2]. At its peak, Napster had over 80 million users across the globe [3]. The service 's popularity sparked a great deal of controversy, as the artists whose music was being downloaded for free felt they deserved to be compensated. Naturally, dozens of lawsuits followed, resulting in Napster 's peer-to-peer file sharing system to be shut down. However, Napster was able to make somewhat of a comeback by competing in today 's ever popular music streaming industry, which allows for users to listen to music at a monthly fee or for free, all the while compensating artists. However, artists still feel they are being compensated at too low of a rate. Clearly, there is still friction in the industry between the consumers and producers.…

    • 1977 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    In recent years the Internet has become the major source for acquiring music. No more sitting in front of the radio with a cassette recorder waiting for a favorite song to come and capture it on tape to enjoy at leisure. No more high speed dubbing on dual cassette boom boxes to make a copy of the new Metallica album for friends. With the creation of digital format media and high-speed Internet connections, along with peer to peer (P2P) network sites like Napster and Kazaa, it is easier than ever to get songs, movies, and even software. Now all one needs to do is log onto a P2P network and with a couple clicks of the mouse, find, and download almost any music wanted. Though it is illegal to download media from these types of sites (since they are free), it has not stopped people from using them. They actually flocked to them. While the Internet has made sharing music easier and more prevalent, sharing music is nothing new. People have been trading and sharing music long before the Internet was created. With more than 2.6 billion illegal downloads a month (Music United 1) the record industry would have the public believe that file sharing is the main cause of their finical woes. Evidence exists though that suggests file sharing can actually be a benefit to them.…

    • 1553 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    With the development of the internet and the influence that technology has on musical artists, it has become a convergence that now run hand in hand. Before the internet, artists were recording their music in studios and producers were selling their CD’s to customers in person. Ten years ago, the biggest record labels were worried about online piracy. Watching the decline of CD sales made record labels decide to license their records to new online services. Consumers illegally used programs like Napster and Limewire to pirate music, waiting to download tracks when they were made available.…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Piracy has affected the music industry drastically over the years. It would appear all is well for those in the recording industry. However, the music industry is worth more than half of what it was in 1999 and the decline doesn't look as if it will improve. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) reported that in 1999, the revenue for music sales topped $14.6 billion. Over time, total revenue from U.S. music sales and licensing plunged to $6.3 billion in 2009 (Alexandra. “The History of Recording Industry Sales, 1973-2010...”). File sharing is the reason for the decline in album sales over the years. Because it is so easy to get free music, people do not find a need to purchase it. In 1984, the Supreme Court, ruled in the Universal City Studios vs. Sony Corporation case, that home recording of copyrighted materials, would be legal under the fair use provision (Stevens, Law of Cornell.). The decision was made so that it would be legal for home users to make copies of copyrighted material without obtaining any permission of the copyright holder to do so. This ruling covered music, television shows, and movies. Many people argued that they wanted to be able to use the recording devices that they purchased. There needs…

    • 624 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Record companies start suing people who have downloaded music for ridiculous amount of money in attempt to intimidate and scare off the fellons from downloading music illegally. The main groups affected are college kids that don't have the money. Sarah Barg was a sophomore at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Sarah received an email from a label company stating that she owed $3,000 to the Recording Industry Association of America (Bratton). For that…

    • 1268 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cause and Effect

    • 608 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Just as pirating hurts the company who produced the music it takes a bigger toll on the musicians who worked so hard to bring it to you. According to smallbusiness.chron.com, financial loss and layoffs are two big effects of illegally downloading music. The RIAA reports that music sales in the United States have dropped 47 percent since Napster first debuted in 1999. The availability of free music has cost the music industry $12.5 billion in economic losses. To recoup some of these losses, the music industry has filed lawsuits against individuals who have been found to have illegally downloaded music. In some cases, individuals have been sued for thousands, if not…

    • 608 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays