Music Piracy

PIRACY

FOR:

It is not stealing. It is just creating a copy of a product. That product still exists and still can be sold; therefore, downloading a copy of a computer file is not the same as stealing a physical product like a CD.

Many artists simply want to be heard and praised. Anyone who is in the music business for the money is not a true artist. Free downloading means more people can hear their music, right? Isn't that what they want?

The study found that legal purchases would be about 2 percent lower without illegal downloading available-meaning, yes, illegal downloads boost legal downloads.

AGAINST:

Copyright laws are put into place to try to ensure that people in creative industries (filmmakers, musicians, music engineers, writers, composers, software developers etc.) are able to get paid for the things they create. If artists work hard to compose and record songs, shouldn’t they be able to gain financial rewards like professionals in any other field? Not paying for something which is supposed to be paid for, no matter whether it is a physical object or not, it is still wrong.

There are lots of costs involved. Sure record companies make a lot of money from CD sales of very popular artists, but this money is used to invest in new artists and less commercially successful artists. Anyways, just because something is expensive, that doesn’t give you the right to get it for free. And maybe if you stopped downloading it for free, they would reduce the price.

Many record labels are losing huge amounts of profits from album sales. They're also finding it increasingly difficult to sign up new artists, because the money just isn't there to support them.

It costs thousands of dollars just to get into a recording studio, along with all the money required for distribution, promotion and advertising. Then there's the enormous cost of a tour, with travel, accommodation, promotion, security and venue hire. Even just a one man acoustic show costs tens of thousands of dollars. This of course is even more difficult for independent artists, who have to rely entirely on their own funds to continue making music. The illegal download trend makes these things nearly impossible.

It would be like somebody stealing a painting. It is stealing somebody's work. And in the end if everyone does it, the music industry ends up getting destroyed. Do you like seeing bands when they go on tour? Well if so then you'll be taking out almost 70% of the bands that do that from their job.

By Shahena Islam