musicpiracy


 * “I support music piracy, Do you?”**

Probably all of my friends have downloaded a song from the Internet lately. And perhaps the song that they have downloaded was by an artist that they had never heard before. Then many of them might have gotten their CD or gone to see them live at a concert. Maybe that artist or the band supported downloading music. Say it was a musician that we had heard of by radio, TV, or another source; if it is that circumstances, the artist is already earning a lot of money. The Internet is an excellent medium to get new music out to people that in other situations would not be able to hear the upcoming talent. Many artists need such a marketing medium. That's why music piracy should be acknowledged.

Without exposure, no one comes to see them live and no one buys CDs or other merchandise. Speaking as friend of an artist who had made music available on the Internet, I know from my friend’s experience that many more people get to hear you than if you had no music available for download. My friend’s band did not get signed to a label until someone heard them on the Internet and enjoyed it. I got a chance to talk with owner of a Record label in my country. I asked him how many of the band that he has signed had he heard of through music piracy. He informed me that more than half of the bands on his label were found somehow through music piracy.

Who gets hurt by free downloads? Save a handful of super-successes like Eminem, none of the new musicians that are real people you would see walking without security guards. They only get helped. Anoushka Shankar is an artist from India who strongly supports music piracy. She believes that letting the listeners download music for fee actually results in an increase in her records sale. As far as American Industry is concerned, Bono from U2 band and Fred Dust from Lim Bizkit band are some of those big names who support music piracy. I also got the chance to talk with Salman Ahmed, the Lead Guitarist of the best South Asian rock band “Junoon”; A band whose music can be found and downloaded illegally;. I asked him what his views on music piracy were and his response was "I don't mind it; it's just a good way for people to hear new music".

The recording industry has transformed this issue in to a huge propaganda. The industry claims that downloading music has resulted into the huge losses for the music industry. But if you see the results, they give you a completely different picture. The results show a constant increase in the record sales year by year Even during the times when Napster has just started to offer its services. There was an increase in the record sales according to various statistics. Majority of the people who download music are looking for some new artist. I agree that large numbers of people are downloading the latest hits by a famous artist or a band like U2 or Cold play. But one can easily implement the soft statistics here by keeping in mind that these musicians are already making millions of dollars out of their music.

The music industry is merely relying giving the facts and figures in its favour that generally have no authenticity. These facts only show one side of the picture that favours the gatekeepers of music industry. One of their surveys stated that large numbers of music listeners are not buying the records because they can easily download their music for free. The question to be asked at this point is to whom they have interviewed to reach to this conclusion. School, College, University Kids with access to high speed internet access in their academic locations but not enough dollars to buy a Big Mac every day.

I started writing this after reading the views of those people who are against the music piracy. With millions of dollars already in their pockets they are still hungry for more. However on the other side there are majority of famous musicians who are supportive of music piracy and it comforts so many more musicians than it hinders. Music piracy will probably be a big issue for a long time for the listener, composer and the distributor. People in every society are always trying to get something for nothing, the music industry will always be greedy and want to get all the dollars that it can, and there will be some musicians supporting it and some not. Until there is a compromise or solution this piracy war will rage on.

Works Cited

MARTIN PEITZ AND PATRICK WAELBROECK. Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues, 2004, vol. 1(2), pp. 71-79. THE EFFECT OF INTERNET PIRACY ON MUSIC SALES: CROSS-SECTION EVIDENCE. http://www.serci.org/docs_1_2/waelbroeck.pdf. March 2006

Recording Industry Association of America. RIAA Research and Data. http://www.riaa.com/news/marketingdata/default.asp. March 2006

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. CRTC Reference Center. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/reference.htm. March 2006

Jim Aisner. Harvard Business School. 29 March 2004 Online Posting http://www.hbs.edu/about/news/032904_file_sharing.html. March 2006

IFPI. Representing the recording industry Worldwide.http://www.ifpi.org/. March 2006