Music Piracy: Explosion of illegal downloading

Be it Rock, Hip Hop or Pop, music fans around the world constantly scramble in their rush to listen to the latest songs from their favourite artists. It is obvious that music is an important part of people’s lives. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the rate of music downloads from the internet has been steadily increasing over the years.

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Music piracy by downloading online.

Downloading music from the Internet is not a daunting task and most people do it on a daily basis. The emergence of peer-to-peer (P2P) files sharing sites such as Napster and Gnutella has further eased this transaction of music. This however, has caused various issues involving copyrights infringement to rise to the surface. “Much of the music being swapped between computers is copyrighted, and swapping those songs can be considered piracy- violation of the copyright of the artists or recording companies who own it” (Straubhaar & LaRose 2005).

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Napster logo

Napster

Napster at its peak moment had 30 million people “swapping” 3 billion songs at any given time (Dembart 2001). In the year 1999, Napster was charged with a lawsuit by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) of infringing on two copyright laws: the rights of reproduction and the rights of distribution (Peters 2003). Although the court did not rule in favour of Napster, the site has not disappeared from the sphere of the Internet; it has since become legal and charges a fee for the downloading of music from its site.

Sourced from: http://www.kazaa.com/us/images/kazaa_3.2.5.jpg

Kazaa logo

Kazaa

The illusion that copyright infringements would end with the closing down of Napster however, has been squelched with the uprising of Kazaa. Kazaa adopts the similar methods of P2P as Napster, with the ‘slight’ exception that it is recognised as a legal site. This shocking difference is because Kazaa does not have music downloads, opting instead to allow users to share music with the use of their software (Maier 20004).

RIAA’s studies and research have shown a slight decline in the sales of CDs, causing them to be concerned about their revenue and that of the artists. In a bout of frustration they have resorted to harsh measures in overcoming the issue of illegal music downloading. For example, RIAA filed almost 400 lawsuits against consumers with more than 1000 music files in their hard drives (Maier 2004). Their “scare tactics” have not been taken well with artists however. Chuck D of rap group Public Enemy says, “Lawsuits on 12-year-old kids for downloading music, duping a mother into paying a $2,000 settlement for her kid? Those tactics are pure gestapo.”

Reality

It is without doubt, that music piracy will continue to occur in the years to come. While I myself advocate the need to buy original music, I do realise that in reality it is much easier and cheaper to obtain it online. Hopefully if the music industry reduces the cost of CDs, more people will begin to pay for their music, instead of “stealing” it.

References

1. Dembart, L 2001, ‘the end user/ A voice for the consumer: Post-Napster Era’, International Herald Tribune, 12 November, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://www.iht.com/articles/2001/11/12/itend12_ed3_.php>.

2. Maier, TW 2004, ‘Arresting Kids for Downloading Music; The recording industry is blaming illegally downloaded music for its declining CD sales and is threatening to make teen and preteen music pirates walk the plank’, BNET, 16 February, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_2004_Feb_16/ai_112938307/pg_1>.

3. Peters, M 2003, ‘Problems and Solutions on Peer-to-Peer Networks’, United States Senate, 9 September 2003, U.S Copyright Office, Washington, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat090903.html>.

4. Straubhaar, J & LaRose R 2005, Media Now: Understanding Media, Culture and Technology, Thomson Wadsworth, United States, viewed 11 June 2008, <http://books.google.com.my/books?id=EQ8z_96ZYFEC&dq=downloading+music+illegally&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 >.