When was the last time you bought an album?
I guess a number of people cannot answer the question because they do not remember it. Honestly, I don’t remember it. Since there is Internet and I can download music online, I have never bought a new album yet. I believe there are a lot of people like me.
Is it okay to download music for free on the Internet? I think NO. However, tons of people are doing it. According to Stefannie, 35 million U.S. adults download music files online, and 26 million share files online. 67% of Internet users who download music don't care about copyright laws, 27% of Internet users do care if the music is copyrighted, and 6% of Internet users claim they don't know enough about the issue. 65% of Internet users who share files do not care if they are copyrighted, 30% of Internet users do care if the music is copyrighted, and 5% of Internet users don't know enough about the issue.
According to RIAA, 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.
If someone steals something from you, you can't do anything about it unless you know who did it. On the internet, when someone downloads a copyrighted song file and, without authorization, uploads it to a web site where anyone can download it, there's no way to know who is responsible. If you do not know who is responsible for it, how do you prevent it?
1. Educate people on the benefits of uncompressed music as opposed to compressed (mp3) formats. Let people download but make them buy the songs they really like on CD by telling them it sounds better than an MP3.
2. Enforcement of laws.
3. Create “iTunes” maybe is one way to prevent it to some extent. However, with shared files on computer, there is still space for piracy. There will be no abrupt end to piracy.
4. Lower price of albums. It is too expensive to spend $20 on an album.
5. Heavy penalties could be imposed for people who download music.
Qin, I completely agree with you on the issue of pirated music. Not only is it greatly affecting our economy, but I also agree that preventing illegal copies is quite difficult in today's society. People are extremely knowledgable about new technologies and how to find loopholes in current laws. There are however many ways to minimize illegal downloads. Will they work? Probably not, educating people can only go so far and if law enforcement officials can not stop those file sharing websites fast enough then pirated music will continue to exist. ITunes has been helpful to share music with individuals at a very low cost, but again why would you even want to pay a few dollars when you can easily get it for free?
ReplyDeleteA sound technician may argue you on the fact that uncompressed music sounds better than compressed. I believe that songs in new records nowadays are even developed as a compressed format since it is more manageable digitally. And even if it is true, people will still choose a lower quality option if they know that it's easier and free to acquire. Think about how can we market this ethical issue? I saw an ad from Microsoft's Zune device that said: "Before they make this illegal. Millions of tracks for the price of one cd a month. Explore now". Maybe the ultimate harsh solution will have to be heavy penalties of thousands of dollars and months of jail time, with a massive monitoring program around the Internet, for downloading illegal song files.
ReplyDeleteI agree that piracy is a real issue with real consequences for many decidedly unglamorous people who depend on record companies for a living. However, i am not sure I completely agree with your suggestions for its prevention. The enforcement of laws and campaigns to educate people, for example, would cost a great deal of money. It would probably cost a lot more money than has already been spent on lobbying for tougher legislation. These costs will be passed on to the consumer, thereby making albums even more expensive and making piracy even more attractive. I think record companies need to evolve and part of that evolution should be a tacit acceptance that online piracy cannot be stopped.
ReplyDeleteIt is very difficult to prevent illegal file-sharing because now it is universal common norm.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember? Last quarter, we studied a lot on copyright laws and Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in legal environment class. However, what happened in the beginning of this semester? In IT class, when professor announced that we had to buy articles and cases online, we started to discuss that just one person buys those article and shares them.
This is a great example.
We know a lot about copyright laws and legal issues, but we never consider them seriously.
I think file-sharing is accepted common norm.
Great blog about the imperative need of artists evolving to newer forms of generating money. But we should also realize the positive impact music industry has in U.S. economy. There are lots and lots of people that depend on jobs and income generated by this industry and this is at least one type of work we can’t take abroad. The most successful performers in the world for at least the last 60 years have come from America and millions of dollars have been generated by sales. If we stop the prosecution of illegal downloading of music in the internet, soon everybody will be trying to get all software, movies and all other electronic information without fear of prosecution.
ReplyDeleteQin, I think that you have some great ideas about preventing piracy of digital media; however, I think that in an effort to combat piracy we may have an even bigger problem on our hands with finding an appropriate way to stop piracy. For instance, if we promote services like iTunes there is a huge possibility of the development of olygopolies or monopolies. There have already been content problems with iTunes and the demands that Apple Inc. puts on the companies that provide their products for sale. If we prosecute too heavily it may lead to costs that would far outweigh the benefits. Trials and prosecution are not a cheap way to dispose of problems and with all of the people that use these products it may serve only to backlog the justice system. The sad thing is that most of us can point out the problems, but we would be hard pressed to find good solutions.
ReplyDelete