Illegal Music Downloading Essays

Illegal Music Downloading Essays Illegal Music Downloading Essay Illegal Music Downloading Essay Anastasia 1 Professor Edgar Dana ENC1101 4 September 2012 Effects of Illegal Downloading on the Music Industry Are you willing to face a money-draining lawsuit by the simple click of a mouse? One of the biggest issues today regarding the relation between record companies and all of their eager listeners is illegally downloading music from the Internet. Most people look past the many reasons one shouldn’t download their favorite tracks for free only because now days it’s made easy. However, they should be aware of the consequences that could come from something so simple. We should understand that taking the music for free, we are committing a crime and harming the music industry and limiting the future artists and their creativity. No matter what, when it comes down to it, downloading music without paying is stealing Stealing artists’ hard work is not only unethical but also immoral. We are not only stealing profit from artists but also the record companies that have hundreds of people making a living from these albums. Just like you and me, these employees deserve payments for their hard work and long hours. The artists spend the majority of their time writing and perfecting their songs just for consumers to steal it in a matter of 15 seconds easy. According to the RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) website, in the decade since peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999; music sales in the U. S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14. 6 billion to $7. 7 billion. From 2004 through 2009 alone, approximately 30billion songs were illegally downloaded on file-sharing networks. Stats show, global music piracy causes $12. 5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U. S. jobs lost, a loss of $2. 7 billion in workers earnings, and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues, $291 million in personal income tax and $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes. Can you imagine this coming from your own pocket? According to the RIAA, copyright law protects the value of creative work. When you make unauthorized copies of someone’s creative work, you are taking something of value from the owner without his or her permission. Most likely, you’ve seen the FBI warning about unauthorized copying at the beginning of a movie DVD. Though you may not find these messages on all compact discs or music you’ve downloaded from the Internet, the same laws apply. Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, rental or digital transmission of copyrighted sound recordings. (Title 17, United States Code, Sections 501 and 506). There have been many cases where people were guilty of music piracy and left with a felony record, accompanied by up to five years of jail time and fines up to $250,000. Wouldn’t you much rather pay 10$ for an album? One of the most important factors to consider is the artists’ creativity and all the upcoming artists motivation. If artists start loosing chunks of their profit, pretty soon no one will even bother putting in the time, effort, and skill into their music. This means we will not enjoy new music and eventually the industry will die. Music is a very important factor to every day life. Without music the world would lack entertainment, culture and expression, resulting in a very boring environment. In conclusion there are many consequences that could come from something so simple like illegal music downloading. We should understand that taking the music for free, we are committing a crime and harming the music industry and limiting the future artists and their creativity. No matter how easy, when it comes down to it, illegal music downloading is wrong and affects everyone in different ways.