The first side of the argument I tend to agree more with. People can hear or sample music that they heard of from their peers or families, and it will make them want to go and purchase that type of music. Downloading music can be compared to the radio-you hear things you like it encourages you to learn more about that artist or song-and in the future you purchase CD’s of theirs. Music sales have actually increased as internet downloading has increased. Also, illegal downloading can increase exposure for lesser-known artists.
It is not a victim-less crime.
People download music all the time without paying for it and use it for their own benefits without thinking of who is losing in the situation. The downloading of music hurts the music industry because it does not give them the money that they should be given. Downloading music leads to the diminishing sales of CD’s. When you download music, you lose its originality. When you use the copied versions of music, you indirectly are encouraging internet piracy. As you download music, you do not go for the purchase of the original copies of music, which may result in an indirect violation of copyright.
So there are pros and cons to each side of the argument. Internet piracy is illegal and worthy of punishment, but should there be lesser rules and guidelines since it can cause many benefits? If you just wanted to sample a few songs online, I think that should be allowed and will encourage listeners to purchase the more music and help the music industry. The music industry does lose money from people not purchasing their songs when they should be, but they gain so much more from people who want to hear more because they sampled songs online.
I like to sample music as well, so it is a good thing that iTunes offers that little thirty second window of sampling on their website. If it were not for that, I do not know if I would be buying as much music as I do. I think downloading from P2P websites will cost the consumer way more in the end. There was this one time when I was stationed at Kadena Air Force base in Japan, and I was hanging out with my friend in his room in the barracks. He was downloading music from a website called Morpheus, and I do not know how the copyright laws are while you are in another country, but I imagine they have the same laws as the US. Anyway, he was downloading all this cool, new music, and the next thing you know, I see his computer screen just flash. The screen changed from black to blue and he said “oh no!” Then he tried to reboot his computer, but when it turned on, it only made a weird clicking noise, and turned back off. He took it in to get repaired, and the technician told him that he got a virus and his hard drive has crashed. From that day on I told myself, I am definitely never going to download music on those P2P websites. So yes, you can definitely get viruses like that.
ReplyDeleteI have a totally different opinon than you. I feel everyone is guilty of priracy. Futhermore chances are the music they are taking off of the internet site has been paid for by the site or they could not have it. With something as flexible as internet I think it is crazy to try to put a law on Music. It is to my understanding that company who label and sale music already factor in the cost of all priated music. So when you walk in to Target and pull that Justen Beiber Cd down and look at the purchase price of 20.99, guess what you just not only paid for your copy but you also paid a portion of little suzi's copie that she stole. Same is true with pirateing. So really the artist's and lables or complaining because they want more, more money. That's greed that should be agaisnt the law. That being said I feel Piracy will never die.
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