English 250 RA
Protest Essay
Mr. Perez
The internet has made a big impact within the music industry this past decade. Many people who listen to music have bought CDs, iPods, and MP3 players. Nowadays, people who own various types of styles of MP3 players download music off of websites such as iTunes, Rhapsody, etc. On the contrary, many people are now illegally downloading music that has copyrights from websites such as Limewire, Kazaa, and Napster. Why is downloading from these sites illegal? Music listeners are downloading the music for free. Many people will argue that downloading for free is not a big problem; just look at how rich the music artists are—they’ve got it made! But downloading music with copyrights for free is illegal and many people are finding out the expensive consequences of these actions. All music listeners should stop downloading off of free illegal websites and take into consideration struggling upcoming artists and a bad background record if caught illegally downloading.
Music listeners vary in age differences, and many music listeners typically like a certain type of music. Of course not all music listeners tend to listen to what their roommate, siblings, or father enjoys. Many people have different preferences and with these different preferences the internet has provided a massive amount of music available to them. The main audience that has really started to pick up on illegal downloading is young students, ranging from junior high to college level students. The record industry and upcoming artists are faced with a threat of online piracy operating on two fronts: one comprising PC and music enthusiasts, high-school kids in college dorms innocently trading their favorite artists’ music by e-mail; and the other involving file-sharing and pirate web sites offering downloads of copyright material, usually on a no-charge basis, profiting instead from advertising revenue (Mewton). The fact that MP3 files can be easily passed between individuals’ computers as e-mail attachments is not the only worry for the music industry. Of possibly greater significance is the fact that there is nothing to stop a bootlegger legally purchasing a CD by, say, David Archuleta, inserting it into his PC’s CD-ROM drive, ripping the tracks and making them freely available as MP3 files on his web site (Mewton).
How did this all start? Napster. Back in 2000, Napster was the most prominent of several controversial software applications that allowed music listeners to search the internet for MP3 files which match your specific criteria (Mewton). MP3 files contained not only the music, but also details of the artist, record company, track duration and all kinds of interesting information about the track in question on what is known as the ID3 tag, which enabled Napster to select the MP3 files relevant to that person. It has a phenomenal archive to choose from because, unlike other MP3 web sites, Napster did not actually store any of the files itself. Instead, it acted as a conduit, allowing users across the globe to access each other’s private collections, a.k.a. “peer-to peer networking” (Mewton). The question at that time was is Napster acting illegally by providing the software that enables MP3 music files to be freely downloaded without paying the copyright owners? The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) seemed to believe so. The RIAA took Napster to court asserting “contributory” copyright infringement by Napster (Mewton). The initial court ruling (that the major record companies and publishers represented by the RIAA be granted a preliminary injunction against Napster) was therefore encouraging for the worldwide record industry, as it was the first time that there had been a court ruling determining that the copyright rules that apply in the real world also apply in the virtual (online) world (Mewton).
Now that Napster is gone, music listeners are now referring to web sites such as Limewire and Kazaa. These are free downloading websites as well and are illegal just like Napster. Many listeners who download from this site can get caught and pay some expensive consequences. Free peer-to peer software is often packaged with spyware, adware, or Trojans, which can threaten your computer's security. In addition, the traffic generated by peer-to-peer file sharing of music and movies slows network response time and detracts from the network resources available for academic and research uses (Avoid Illegal Downloading). Many of the files available on these networks are not authorized by the copyright holder to be downloaded and shared. These files are illegal. By law, the individual liability for copyright infringement resulting from illegal downloading and file sharing is $150,000 per infringement (Avoid Illegal Downloading). That is years of tuition, income, and retirement money thrown down the drain and for what...a song?!
Representing music labels such as Sony and EMI, the Recording Industry Association of America said in March 2007 that it is going after students who have downloaded pirated music from the Internet at colleges, including UCLA and Columbia, sending more than 400 "prelitigation" letters that order the students to pay a settlement fee or face a lawsuit. At Berkeley, students are aware of the industry's efforts to target illegal downloaders, but few feel the legal pressure will slow the piracy. "Everyone knows," John Halushka, a 21-year-old junior at UC Berkeley, said about the risks of downloading pirated music from the Internet. "But no one thinks they'll get caught” (Lee).
For many aspiring music artists, the internet can either make them or break them. Downloading their music for free is not beneficial to the artist and therefore many do not end up with that top hit they need to succeed in the music industry. Marci A. Hamilton, a FindLaw columnist and a big fan of country music, states “was it not for copyright's ability to build fences around intangible goods such as lyrics and melodies, a performer like Loretta Lynn would not have been able to leave Butcher Holler, Kentucky, and share her gifts with the world. The list of country music stars that have come from humble beginnings is long, and the best country music never forgets its origins” (Hamilton). She also believes that “the world would have been a lesser place but for copyright's ability to pave the road for these stars to travel from rags to riches, from hillbilly country to the big lights. In a culture without copyright, only the rich, or the government-sponsored, could be this culture's full-time creators. Poor artists such as Loretta Lynn would have to flip burgers long into their music careers—and might even give up on music entirely” (Hamilton). Artists come and go very quickly in today’s volatile and unstable climate. There is absolutely no guarantee that, just because your first album has been successful, the second will equal or better its success. Some upcoming artists do not even get that second chance because of the piracy that is happening on the internet right now.
Now that the laws, consequences and thoughts are out of the bag about illegal downloading, here is what music listeners now can do to appreciate their music more and also help out their favorite artist to be able to record a new album soon. To legally download MP3 files, there are now plenty of different options available. Aside from looking up major record labels’ web sites directly or going to iTunes.com, you can also enter “MP3” in the search engine to search for web sites which are likely to contain MP3 files (Mewton). iTunes and Rhapsody are the two main legal downloading sites for music, music videos, and even movies. For iTunes, music listeners only pay 99 cents per song and albums are available cheap, around the ten dollar area instead of twenty dollars at stores like Wal-Mart or Target. Everyone who listens to music should always purchase an album or song legally. Doing this will help music artists in today’s industry, whether they are popular now or up-and-coming. If listeners keep downloading illegally for free, new artists will never get their chance to let us listen to their new style. Instead, we will only continue to here the same songs over and over and never hear something new and fresh.
Works Cited
Avoid Illegal Downloading and File Sharing. Northwestern University. 26 August 2008.
14 November 2008
Hamilton, Marci. Why Suing College Students for Illegal Music is Right. August 2003.
14 November 2008
Lee, Ellen. Music Industry Threatens Student Downloaders at UC. 22 March 2007. 14
November 2008
Mewton, Conrad. All You Need to Know About Music and The Internet Revolution.
United Kingdom: Sanctuary Publishing Limited, 2001.
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