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Introduction

Pirating music is the act of stealing music, either by rewriting CD’s, or by using a file-sharing program via the internet. Although it is illegal, file sharing has become extremely popular, and many record companies claim that recent technological advances in piracy have caused low CD’s sales. The reason music piracy is a problem is that it is extremely easy, convenient, and practically unenforceable.

Users will download a free program, such as BitTorrent or Vuze, then use this program to connect with other users to download .torrent files. The user will search the internet for a torrent link using a website organization such as www.piratebay.org. One click on the link and the file begins downloading. Torrent files are referred to as “seeds”, the user with the file are called “seeders” and users downloading the file are refereed to as “leechers”. Torrent file-sharing has recently become more popular because torrent files are small and therefore download faster; and this makes it easier to download large files such as an entire album.

Another way to download music is to use a file-sharing program such as Limewire or Kazaa. These programs are not the same as BitTorrent or Vuze, but they follow the same peer-to-peer downloading style. The difference is that users can type in the desired file name and search for it directly on the program window.

Although file-sharing is illegal, it is very popular. The legitimacy of the effects on the music industry is subject to debate, and until technology can prevent it, file-sharing will continue to be a problem.

History

Online music pirating has been for on the internet for years, even before popular P2P (Peer to Peer) programs such as Napster existed. Even audio/video playing programs such as Windows Media Player and Winamp had the ability to rip songs from CDs into playable formats on the PC and chat programs like IRC (Internet Relay Chat) had the ability to host server bots that could distribute these files. However, online music pirating never became a major legal issue until services like Napster, KaZaa, Limewire, Morpheus, eMule, etc, made it very simple and efficient to search for any song title instantly.

Since the introduction of these programs, there have been many companies within the music and video industry that have been upset because many of their customers have simply stopped purchasing CDs. This not only affected the companies of the entertainment world, but the artists and actors as well. In attempts to discourage such activates, companies began bringing these issues to court. A&M Records filed a case against Napster in which A&M Records won. Another major case was by MGM against Grokster in which once again, the music company MGM won. However despite these cases, the snowball still kept on rolling and getting bigger. Unable to prevent this problem, companies such as iTunes then decided to try and at least capitalize on the inevitable expansion of online music by providing their own services but charging per download. Around the world in 2006, an estimated 5 billion songs, equating to 38,000 years in music were swapped on peer to peer websites, while only 509 million were purchased online.

Although the problem still exists and many companies and lawyers have tried to stop it, the best they can do is simply regulate and limit the distribution of these files. It is virtually impossible to completely eliminate the problem, especially now with programs such as Bittorrent which make it so any individual can create their own dedicated servers and host these files. There would just be too many people to track down and if the servers were hosted somewhere out of the country’s jurisdiction then the law would be hitting gray areas, making it very difficult to solve.

General Issues

About the piracy of music, is the most basic violation of copyright, which harm the development of legitimate software and development. When any company or music publishers publish a well-produced music CD, on the next day, all the people has a free-download version in their mp3. Especially in China, music piracy is usual. Some music can even be downloaded before the official publish day. These all originated from the disregard of the protection of property rights in China. These pirated music seriously undermined the legitimate publication of the market order, not only to the publishers’ income, but detrimental to the country's tax revenue, moreover, many of the sites of downloading pirated music are being used to spread viruses. The use of music piracy is a crime against the people.

People can spend a lot of money to buy computers, audio, as well as a variety of game software, but the piracy problem still exists. In China, a national chain music store employee said they had used pirated CD together with the packaging of legitimate sales, the profit is enormous. However, compared to the official published CD, in spite of the cost of pirated music, there is a big difference in the integrity and quality besides, there is no after-sales service. This is going to affect the reputation of the CD publishers.

Artists can increase their degree of concern through the Internet. A lot of people want their music to be liked by other people; so many singers use networks to release their music for free to others, instead of publish an official album. However, the practice of spreading free music certainly is a violation. Artists considered their music as a career, besides income, they need popularity. With increasing popularity, they’ll have the confidence to write more good songs, just for music to continue to develop.

There are only two kinds of people who listen to only pirated music, 1. The person doesn’t really like the music, or 2. The person does not understand the operation of music producing. When people have mp3, radio was replaced; the most-recent published music is available from the internet. Perhaps the Internet is a good means of publicity, but people have to admit that free downloading of music is also very simple, which spread so rapidly that when people get the information of a new album via the Internet; they’re usually able to download it. The issue will become the music service sector, the music producers want their music can be acceptable to the publics but it’s very difficult to support o their own interest. Since the people can accept a music album, they should support it by buy the official one. Downloading pirated music would lead to serious injury to singer and the music. When artists see their fans don’t even have one of their albums, the music will not make people happy, not so elegant. Imagine a world with no music producers, and artists, where can we download it? The World without music wills loss many colors. Music producers, and artists gave us good music; people enjoy at the same time they need to give a correct response.

Although people are aware that this is illegal, but it has been accepted by the people in silence, it is also difficult for the law to control the internet. So even if you haven’t brought a genuine CD for a month or longer, support the official published one is every music-lover should do.

Statistics

US sales of music compact discs plummeted 20 percent in the first three months of the year as downloading of songs continued to knock the underpinnings from record studio revenues. Eighty-nine million CDs were sold from the start of the year through March 18 as compared with 112 million CDs sold during the same period in 2006, according to figures released Wednesday by industry tracker Nielsen SoundScan. Purchases of digitized albums online failed to make up the difference -- instead they dropped from 119 million during that time period in 2006 to 99 million during the first three months of this year, SoundScan reported. Meanwhile, sales of individual songs in digital format on the Internet rose from 242 million tracks during those months last year to 288 million this year, according to SoundScan. Music fans in the US are buying almost twice as many singles in digital form over the internet as they are on CDs from stores, according to a report. Some 7.7 million tracks were bought and downloaded since the end of June - compared with four million CD singles sold, Billboard magazine reported. The figures show the success of new legitimate music download services. But some say online and CD single sales cannot be compared because so few singles are now released on CD. Record companies have cut CD single releases because of falling sales, but fans can choose from 500,000 songs for $0.99 (£0.60) each on some internet services. In the week ending 26 October, 857,000 songs were sold over the internet - compared to just 170,000 in record shops, Billboard said.

Conclusion

As technology improves, many unexpected problems arise. The problem of pirating music was one of them. The simple click that is made to download music from the internet is clearly an act of a crime. It is now one of the major problems dealing with internet, and it is a global issue. Currently, some of the countries are developing foundations call cyber-police to prevent the internet illegal acts. These foundations apply and enforce the law to the P2P program providers, retracting the files and its search engines. Also, cyber-police can tract down a user who is continuously making illegal acts and charge them with fine. In addition, proper education towards use of internet should be applied to the teenagers who are just starting to use the internet. The education will prevent further illegal act and perhaps be a solution towards clean internet. If file-sharing continues to be a problem, it can lead to the deteriorating music market, as some of the country’s music industry is already showing these symptoms.

References

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070322121539.enwwmbqh&show_article=1

http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2008/03/tuesday-column-ditch-spin-its-record.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3237021.stm

http://76.74.24.142/81128FFD-028F-282E-1CE5-FDBF16A46388.pdf