Lexi Baca
B.Stoutamore
WRI 95.04
16 November 2014
Music Piracy Informative Essay I
Digital music piracy is the theft of online music. Millions of people pirate music without a second thought. Many websites also provide people with pirated music and videos. People use music and other multimedia online. It is more convenient and easy than purchasing a CD. Influences such as social, economic, and behaviors increase the likelihood of one pirating music (Jeong, Bong-Keun). There are negative and positive outcomes of digitally pirating music. Three issues of digital piracy are artists being hurt financially, price of the media, and copyright laws.
Beginning artists struggle to become known within the music industry and to society. They may even pay out of pocket to get music online. When people pirate an artist’s music, it hurts the artist financially. Beginning artists have to pay their bills and continue promoting themselves. Not only are the artists being hurt, but also the smaller businesses who help to promote the artist. Smaller music businesses may not sign many beginning artists because of online piracy and not making a profit. The artists focus more on touring and merchandise because of the loss of online sells. If the artists cannot make any money, then they will not be able to continue producing music.
For the successful artists like Kanye West, Kesha, and Nicki Minaj digital music piracy has positive benefits. These artists get more money from concerts than selling their music online. These artist can allow their music to be free online as an advertisement. It is an easy way to get people to come to their concerts and buy merchandise. Rick Carnes points out that today’s artist’s focus on their image and creating a brand for themselves because most of the money they make comes from ticket sales to their concerts (Carnes). When people can download big artists music for free then they are more likely to attend a concert or buy other merchandise from the artists.
Online music is usually priced per song or by an entire album. On iTunes one could be paying up to a dollar or more just for one song. Buying CD’s are even more expensive. Computers today come with CD burners and plenty of storage to copy music (Bender, Mark T.). Many people cannot afford to purchase music online. The music industry has to raise the prices of online music because of the pirating. People resort to pirating the music online because they can do it for free. Also, because they do not think that they will be caught or have any consequences. People perceive little risk of pirating music (Jeong, Bong-Keun). They can have more entertainment without any cost when they pirate.
Smaller businesses may have to price the music higher than other businesses to be able to pay their employees. Pirating music may lead to less innovation from companies and even products with less quality (Jain, Sanjay). There is a lot that goes into producing music and getting it online. There are artists, produces, mangers, song writers, and the people who edit and record the music who all need to be paid. If the business cannot make a profit then may have to shut down. Even retired artist may not get royalties from the music they have produced. A study by the Institute for Policy Innovation shows that the U.S economy loses 12.5 billion dollars as well as 70,000 lost jobs due to music piracy (Storrs).
It is illegal to pirate music. There are many copy right laws in place that prohibits the theft or distribution of pirated music. One can be given a hefty fine and can even be put in jail for pirating music. Copy right laws are also in place for the artists so people cannot take their ideas and claim it as their own. Although these laws are in place it does not deter music piracy. Also, many artists may not be aware of copyright laws or have very little information about them. As technology changes, copyright laws protection is becoming weaker (Arias, J.J.)
Many people will argue