Music Piracy

As previously mentioned, piracy affects the consumer as well as the industry. As more songs and albums are downloaded and copied illegally the price of legal music goes up, however, this is just one of the adverse effects of piracy on consumers. Many of the restrictions of legal downloaded music can be attributed to the vast amount of illegal use of those files.

Unfortunately, most times music is stolen it goes un-punished. The penalties when one is caught, however, are very harsh. First time offenses in criminal courts carry up to $250,000 in fines and five years in prison. Civil cases can cost thousands in legal fees and when sued, the minimum penalty for piracy is $750 per song. Aside from criminal and civil penalties, and on top of the fines and jail time, the copyright holder can usually get up to $150,000 per song for statutory damages. While these fines may seem outrageous for a $.99 song, the damages done to the victims on music piracy are more serious than they seem. Copying music illegally causes the pirated recordings to lose sound quality and can ruin the reputation of a musician. Also, some pirated music is altered or mixed which can sacrifice the intent or the talent of a musician or composer/song writer.

Not all free music is illegal. Many websites offer free alternatives to buying music such as websites like YouTube, Imeem, AOL music, Yahoo music, and hundreds more which offer videos and songs at no charge to the user, some which offer an option to buy. Listening to music online is good if one only listens on the computer, however, when downloading and having control of a file is a must, there are other ways of obtaining that music without stealing it. Online music stores like ITunes, Bear Share, Rhapsody, etc. offer inexpensive music (usually $.99 a song).

Although most are not caught, and stealing a $.99 song could not possibly hurt a multi-billion dollar industry, music piracy is wrong. Regardless of your reasoning, whether you just want to try out a new artist, or are just downloading one or two songs from a particular album, it is still stealing. Music piracy hurts the legal owners and producers of that music, many artists never make money because they cannot get started financially. Jobs also suffer; there are approximately $12.5 billion of economic losses every year from music piracy, in turn over 71,000 jobs are lost every year in the music industry and retailing directly caused by piracy.