Should Downloading Music be Free? I have chosen the topic, should people be allowed to download music from the internet for free? This has been a highly controversial topic in the past years that have turned the fans against the music industry all together. To the fans, this has been a seemingly harmless act of trading music with friends like baseball cards. The web sites like Napster have changed the way we buy music or steal music forever. In my research on downloading music from the internet for free, I believe that you should have to pay to download music off of the internet because it’s negatively effecting the artists, record companies, and is morally wrong.
Effects on the artists There is someone everyday illegally downloading music that a band or artist has worked hard to create. If you like the music that the band has produced then support the band by buying the music instead of downloading it illegally. Most musicians have to finance their albums through the record companies to record the album and distribute it. Then artists take a pay cut until they sell enough albums to pay back the record company. The bands will release fewer albums because they can’t afford the expenses. Therefore, people-downloading songs off of the internet for free are resulting in less album sells making musicians struggle to make ends meet. Many people don’t think that downloading music hurts anyone just because someone down the line has paid for it already. That is like saying I don’t have to pay you for mowing my yard because my neighbor paid you when you mowed his yard. People won’t allow this in our society, so what makes it right in the music industry? It doesn’t, it’s wrong and it’s stealing from the artists. If people don’t start paying for the artist’s music, then the record companies will sign fewer new bands. If there are fewer new bands then there’s less new music for people to steal.
Effects on the record companies The record companies are losing from the illegal music downloading as well. The record companies have been laying off singers and bands as their profits have decreased, they have cut positions they no longer can afford. These cuts aren’t just the big name singers they go as far down the line to technicians and marketing. According to the RIAA (Record Industries Association of America), there have been more than 71,000 jobs lost in the industry and music sells are down 47 percent because of illegal downloading of music. So how can you say that downloading music illegally isn’t negatively affecting the music industry? This is also having artists stray in different directions then the traditional record labels. There are new companies like Ramp Records with new way of distributing their music to avoid the record companies and losing money. They are using free airwave; they will put their music online to see what catches on, produce, and sell it online. The companies like this are building new business models for the internet, making the record companies lose even more. This process is eliminating the middleman (the record companies) and if everyone wants to change to this process of producing music, it could ruin the record companies. So with people illegally downloading music it is having artists going in different ways to distribute their music and is costing the record companies money.
Morales
The seemingly innocent act of downloading music for free isn’t just hurting the music industry, but it’s morally wrong for people to do it. When we are children, we are taught not to steal candy for the store, copy a paper from someone else, or to take a CD from a music store. I think we can agree throughout are society it is immoral to steal, but people still don’t see the ethical issues with downloading music illegally. Many people think illegal downloading is like burning your friends CD, but with the internet there is a huge audience that the CD is being shared with and it’s not comparable. So when you do