Music Piracy free essay sample

In the 21st century, many changes have been made to digital media. One such media that has experienced an extreme change is music. It is no longer just a type of media that Is made by singers and bought by consumers, but It is now part of the dark, scary side of the Internet. There are even journal article authors who have written about music piracy. Music is the most widely pirated media in the world today. From singles to albums to recording demos, music of all genres Is ripped and released into the music piracy scene (Craig, Honing, and Burnett 174). These authors illustrate how big music piracy has become. Currently, in the world of music Industries, music piracy Is taking over the money business and leaving musicians financially unstable; this instability is the reason for convincing music pirates to stop downloading music, illegally, off the Internet by coming up with different solutions to the Issue of piracy. The solutions consist of finding other websites where music downloading can be done at a reasonable price, taking legal action if necessary, and coming up with hi-tech development that could stop pirates from downloading.People may be wondering what exactly music pirates are defined as. According to Amy Wither, they are normal, everyday people who download music illegally off the Internet (2). Music piracy has been occurring for a long time, as long as the sasss where music was conventionally regarded as lying beyond the purview of copyright altogether, so publishers sold unauthorized reprints freely (Johns 67). Later, though, big companies started to form in the world. Shawn Fanning, a college student, created the Anapest Company online. ND once It was established, everyone started to use Anapest in college and it spread around quickly becoming the new website to use and download music from (Wade 10). Anyone can do the downloading through Anapest and many people participate. Also, music piracy Is definitely not an untouched topic. There have been law cases against certain Internet companies that allow music sharing to occur. For example, Matt Richter discusses in the New York Times article that the company Fanning started (Anapest) was part of a court case against The Recording Industry Association of America.The court had ordered the industry and company to get along by allowing Anapest to copyright certain music that the recording Industry approved and, of course, for a price. Anapest failed to eave the music approved and only caused the court case to become bigger. Finally, the Judge ordered Anapest to stop swapping copyrighted music that the recording company owned. Even though all of these controversies occurred, Anapest and music piracy, in general, still believe they are doing no harm to the music industry and that they are actually benefiting the sales and profits.In an article titled Securities Price Effects of Anapest-Related Events, there is a phrase that reads the evidence indicates that events that threatened Anapests survival resulted in decreases in the stock prices of the music firms (Navies 167). Even though Anapest believed they were beneficial, It turns out they brought nothing but harm to the stock market. It was actually beneficial that Anapest was shut down. The court case is just one of the many issues Anapest has been through. It was a part of eleven court cases toys companies are still up and running, though, and there is not going to be a stop to piracy Just because one company has been shut down. It will keep on occurring until a stop is put to the companies. As the years have been going by, music sharing and downloading has been increasing and less people seem to care about it now. There ere once many news articles and online articles that discussed music piracy during the early sasss, but it has seemed to die down now. There has not been much talk on the issue.One reason why less people care about the music piracy issue is because the recording industries, themselves, have stopped trying to ban the illegal downloading. Also, there are a multitude of people that do this downloading; therefore, it is Just difficult to stop every single person from downloading music online. Since the people of the music industries and the pirates have stopped caring, other actions will have to be taken. In order to stop piracy from continuing, music pirates must completely stop the illegal downloading or technological protection strategies (Chug, Hung-Change et. L 723) must be taken on. As mentioned before, legal actions have been taken to stop the illegal purchasing, but the legal actions were only successful up too certain point. Certain technological advances could help, though, in stopping piracy. These advances consist of watermarks on Cads (Craig 175), blocking music piracy sites, and putting music into secure areas of the Internet to where one can only access the music with a small fee. All of these strategies seem relevant enough to work, but no one will ever know unless they are put into action. Music piracy has become the next big issue and measures must be put down to stop it. Music pirates have yet to realize the real dangers behind this illegal downloading. The people do not realize that music artists are being affected, financially, by their downloading and music industries are losing billions of dollars with a decrease in CD sales. When music industries first started to grow, there were only one to two companies that were part of the industry. Now, the industry as a hole is composed of five major companies that make over 14 billion yearly (Abortionist 10).These companies make good money, and the start of downloading and sharing has only ruined it. According to Alexandra Center, there is about 9 percent of the total population that download music every day. Also, the regular users that download the music also share the music to people who do not download as much. Because of this downloading and sharing, there has been a drop in music sales by 2. 7 percent making music industries lose billions. When it comes to music artists, they already have a hard time making money through recording impasses and music pirates do not make it easier.The statistics say that The costs of recording an album can easily reach several hundred thousand dollars, so an artist can only expect to earn royalties from an album if it sells over 500,000 copies (Abortionist 11). People may believe that artists are financially successful, but, in reality, they make barely any money. According to Janis Ian, a famous music artist, if were not songwriters, and not hugely successful commercially (as in platinum plus), we [recording artists] dont make a dime off our recordings (CTD. N Abortionist 12). Imagine how much recording artists would make if piracy took over completely.These artists would basically make zero money if they were not the least bit successful or had only been in the music business for a few years. Now, artists are Zimmermann men that were making good money off of selling pirated music in Botswana finally have their house broken into by famous music artists and they ended up confiscating all the pirated music (Legroom). Violence has even become a part of stopping piracy; therefore, music pirates do not know what may be coming to hem. Although there may be many other alternatives to piracy, some music pirates may not want to stop pirating at all.There are many opposing views in discontinuing music downloading or music file sharing. The views consist of music pirates not Anatine to drive to a store to buy a CD; in other words, they would want to do something that is more convenient for them. Also, most music pirates do not want to pay for the music. According to Cultures of Music Piracy, Making a single CD costs record companies well under $1 (Vogel, 2001: 162), students feel that CDC are overpriced, especially when it turns out there are only a couple of good songs on the album (CTD. In Condor 20).Even though it may look cheap if a CD only costs one dollar for it to be made and put into stores, the price of the CD afterwards is high and Nat the consumers have to pay is that high price. If anything free is available at hand, they would rather take that than purchase it. Music pirates, also, Just do not care that their downloading is affecting music artists. Music artists, famous celebrities who do not have much personal interaction with the common folk, are not ere important to the pirates and, therefore, do not care to take their music illegally.All of these opposing views seem reasonable on why music pirates do not want to purchase the music. There are solutions to all of these views, though. For example, hen it comes to music pirates wanting convenience in obtaining their music, they can easily purchase music at home on the Internet. There is absolutely no need for anyone to leave his or her own home and go to a store to buy a CD. Money is also a ere big issue in buying music, but that issue can be reasonable solved, too. There re many other websites that have packages put together for purchasing a certain amount of music. Rhapsody, a legal downloading music website, has a 14 day trial for anyone who is interested in signing up with them and, after the sign-up, it is either lust one dollar per track or $12. 99 per month for unlimited downloading :www. Rhapsody. Com). That deal is a very reasonable price and the website has broken down the payments in a way that is convenient for anyone. There are also many other websites out there who are willing to help anyone that needs financial assistance with his or her music purchases. For example, Limier is also another online company that allows anyone to become a member of his or her website and purchase music. Usually there are free membership trials if no one wants to obtain the full program. Since this option is available, people save money by not becoming full member of the program, but they would still have to purchase the music. It is a total of $34. 95 to acquire the full program of Limier (beta. Limier. Com). That price is a lot of money that can be saved if one Just signs up for the free membership. Also, there has even been a start to a certain number of students who seed to be pirates and now have taken measures to stop piracy.According to Elise Ackerman in her article titled Student Gets around Program to Prevent Music Piracy, Princeton University graduate named John Hildebrand actually installed a device Into a certain CD he owned that can stop anyone from copying that CD. He has even to it, the software was still made and put into certain computers to where no one can copy music from his or her CDC. Since this student came up with a way to prevent piracy, anyone has the capability to stop pirating and becoming like this man who reed stopped piracy.Even though music pirates can conveniently purchase music at home (even purchase it at a reasonable price) or even come up with software to prevent piracy, some music pirates could actually Just not care at all about how their downloading is affecting the careers of musicians. Music pirates do not realize, though, that if they ke ep on pirating, soon enough music artists will be out of the Job and there will be no more music made for the pirates to download illegally. Music pirates will have no more music to listen to and there will be no more artists in the industry. Several music artists that have been close to experiencing this scenario are all over programs online such as Limier, Anapest, Rhapsody, and etc. Anyone that may seem to be doing well in the music industry such as Taylor Swift, Jessie McCarty, and Akin all end up on these piracy sites and they are gradually losing money every second one of their singles are being downloaded (Center 64). Soon enough all these famous artists will have no more money to produce more music and the music industry will come crashing down.There are no benefits in either of the tuitions where music pirates are stubborn in stopping piracy and, at the same time, music artists are losing money. It is better if the music pirates Just stop pirating all together. Therefore, music artists do not go bankrupt and are available to make more music for the pleasure of listening. Everyone benefits if this solution comes true. Now, what if music pirates still do not care that a certain number of artists lose their Jobs since there are many artists in the industry? What are music pirates going to do if all the music artists make their music only accessible to Tunes or Junes?There is no way one can obtain music for free if all the music is put into these types of services. Therefore, again, it is for the best if piracy is put a stop to otherwise, one day, all the music made by all the music artists will be only a part of services like Tunes and then there will be no music by music artists available for pirates to listen to. Only way they can is if they start buying music. Music piracy has many ways of being stopped and music pirates would be able to see this now. Music piracy, a big Issue among the entire world, has been ruining music industries for decades, now, ND leaving most music artists with no money.These results are the very reason on NH music piracy needs to be put a stop to either by legal action, technological software, or by the music pirates themselves. Piracy has become a big issue and certain actions have been taken to stop pirates from continuing their downloading, but these certain actions have not seemed to have worked at all. Music pirates, however, have been given a sufficient amount of reasons on why piracy needs to be put to a stop to, and if these reasons stop the whole piracy issue, there will be a Nor filled with no piracy and music artists will be financially stable again.