Piracy in Music Industry - Essay Example

Name: Lecturer: Institution: Piracy in Music Abstract Music is a wide field. It’s leisure to some people while others take it as business. The success in the music industry depends on copyright laws and legal environments. There are arguments that unlicensed services are a threat to this industry. According to estimates by IFPI, based on comscored data, twenty six percent of people all over the world have access to unlicensed music. It is referred to piracy and a challenge to artists investing and the development of licensed music. Pirating reduces the income of the composer if he published his music among other negative effects. Research however shows that pirating is not all on cost. There are positive benefits that come with it. The damages of piracy are not as severe as the notion outside the industry. Keywords: IFPI, P2P,RIAA According to IFPI, the development of music industry and artist investment is threatened by digital piracy. Peer to peer (p2p), file sharing networks, unlicensed streaming websites, unlicensed streaming and stream networks, free emailing of song links, cyber lockers and aggregators are among the many forms and channels that have been undermined by piracy. Most people think that it is a small act to pirate music. This however is not true because another person’s idea, invention or product is used without their idea. In this case a copyright has been infringed. What most people don’t know is that artists are just among the victims affected, the people working in the music industry are also affected. This people include songwriters, recording artists, technicians, marketers, publishers, producers, audio engineers among others. According to a study by the institute for policy innovation the American worker affects the American economy with a $12.5 billion, while 70,000 lost jobs as $2 billion loss of wages. This is according to the research given. Lesig stated that the projected volume of downloading illegally and the estimated sale loss has a wide unevenness between them. He states: “In 2002, the RIAA reported that CD sales had fallen by 8.9 percent, from 882 million units. Revenues fell 6.7 percent. This confirms a trend over the past few years. The RIAA blames internet piracy for the trend, though there are many other causes that could account for this drop. Sound can for example, reports a more than 20 percent drop in the number of CDs released since 1999. That no doubt accounts for some of the decrease in sales. But let’s assume the RIAA is right, and the entire decline in CD sales is because of internet sharing. Here’s the rub: in the same period RIAA estimates that 80 million CDs were sold, the RIAA estimates that 803 million CDs were downloaded free. Thus, although 2.6 times the total number of CDs sold was downloaded free, sales revenue fell by just6.7 percent. So there is a huge difference between downloading a song and stealing a CD.” Other topics discussed its riskiness since most of pirated products have a high likelihood to having viruses which easily damage the computer. Piracy is also considered unproductive. This is because the legitimate users are not given software’s with manuals or support. Therefore pirates don’t derive as much as the users of the software through legal means. Although most people argue that this act is unfair, illegal and risky, it is not really as it has been put out. Thinking about it for a minute, is there a need to combat piracy. Internet piracy while wrong provides a few benefits. Piracy gives people the chance to access career tools that they need. Students need word processing and office programs, musicians on the other hand need software’s to edit the work. Creative’s are not an excemption, they need soft wares to illustrate and image editing. There are claims that most packages of software cost thousands of dollars. This is hard for students and young professionals to afford. According to Cueller (n.p), she describes Sarah a young designer working in a local design agency who says: “Software is just too expensive. It is easy to say an investment of $1,000 in photo shop CS6 will be returned in just a few projects. But with my tight budget and fierce competition for design services, I really can’t afford to wait to save up and buy it.” Piracy on the other hand is not all about cost. It’s about the contributions it makes to the economy. Students like Sarah pirate in order to build their skills and knowledge professionally. In some countries like Singapore people land jobs just by having experiences in certain software’s. Another reason is that the unknown is discovered through piracy. Most times the reason as to why most people watch movies or videos is that it was shared free. This therefore has enabled a number of people to access the product. This is beneficial to the mass media since many people would be aware of the product. It allows what would otherwise be skipped to be discovered. Bands and TV shows have been put on the map through the word of mouth which resulted from free downloads due to piracy. Through piracy people access the inaccessible. A good example is of a person that is wandering the internet and hears about a good TV show say breaking bad. What happens to a person who lives in the side of the world where the show is not aired? What happens to such a person? At times one is willing to save some money to legally watch the show, one buys the DVDs but there is no one to ship it to your location, perhaps there is no access to streaming online in your country, so one can’t buy access to it. In such situations when there are no means to access the legal product, what does one do? For most such people they are left with the option to buy pirated products whether one calls it unfairness or self-entitlement it’s a personal choice. Technological advancement has been spurred by this act. Bit Torrent is a god example. A file distribution acts in an amazing way and with many legal applications. For instance, Blizzard entertainment uses it to distribute games while Florida State University distributes scientific data to be researchers through this file. Bit torrent is famous for its connection with internet piracy. It does not require a centralized server where you download files. There is no host, therefore no direct owner held liable hence easier piracy (Cueller, n.p) According to Forbes, the TV and movie piracy concerns make people to take different sides. However other people feel that the issue is not entirely cut as it seems to be. There is real money being lost to piracy. An employee in Wolfe video experienced his profits being halved because of piracy. Would the student buying a pirated DVD in the market have bought a genuine product instead? Free pirated music if not given, does not mean that the student would have bought the music. It is not fair to give assumptions that every pirated product is lost revenue to the composer. Loss of revenue through piracy is of concern to the masters of the company however those not getting a considerable share of back end money like actors and directors normally are not affected. Another way to improve awareness in this industry where ones work, name and face are important free streaming is considered as a right strategy to visibility. The director off game of Thrones David Petrarcam said that, the added audience created cultural buzz for his work. Piracy as argued by some people is illegal. But there are reasons that justify piracy. Asked if piracy would kill the music industry, Stephen Navin chief Executive of the UK music publishers association said: “Let’s assume that you are from the axiom that no business can survive on a free basis. The yard-stick by which any business model sinks or swims is ‘can those who invest in it make money from it’ where do they get their money back from. Do they get it back from advertisers? Do they get it from state and a return to a system where culture is financed through patronage? I think you’ll find it’ll be a mixed economy.” There is need for a mixed economy; it will only depend on how people will take it (Debating Europe, n.p). Conclusion To reiterate, according to the current law internet piracy is wrong. However there are definitely its benefits that exist. Therefore concluding that piracy is harmful than good assumes the many positive changes exposed to its consumers. The reality is if one site is closed other sites will pop up. Therefore mitigating the dangers of piracy is not through the government rather business innovators. Works Cited Cuellar J. “Why Digital Piracy May Be Good For the Creative Industry.” Finance.yahoo.com. n.d Web.21 March. 2014. Retrieved from Debating Europe. “Will digital piracy kill the music industry” debating.europe.eu.n.d. Web 28th Oct 2011.Retrieved from IFPI. “The recording industry’s ability to develop the digital marketplace is undermined by piracy.” ifpi.com.n.d.web.18th March.2015.Retrieved from Lawrence, Lessig. Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004. Read More