Analysis Of Piracy: Mass Thievery From The Music Industry

Piracy: Mass Thievery from the Music Industry For generations and across the world, people have used music as a source of personal expression, and a source of comfort. Music can alter moods and bring people together (Hollinger, 2016). For these reasons, it should come as no surprise that music has been an item of high demand. Unfortunately, music is costly to produce, and the music industry has been plagued for years by a dark force; depriving music moguls of their hard-earned money. Piracy. Piracy is defined by the Webster dictionary as the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright or the illicit accessing of broadcast signals (n.d). Today, an easy misconception to make

The music industry creates jobs for many more people than just the artist. Music brings people together, thereby increasing tourism for cities. As cited in the Nashville Music Industry report, the music industry contributed to 10 billion dollars to their local economy in 2013 alone (Nashville.gov, 2013). That’s just one city! Just as the music industry affects more than just the artists, piracy negatively affects more than just the music industry. According to Musicmetric, the United States leads in illegal BitTorrent use. As stated in their report, Americans used file sharing networks to nab over 700 million tracks in just six months, far exceeding the number of purchased downloads (Chmielewski, 2012). It is estimated that the United States loses 12.5 billion dollars per year through music piracy (Hilbig,

According to their website, there are several ways in which people illegally obtain music, all of which are punishable by law. Downloading content from peer-to-peer websites, stream ripping content from other licensed sources, coping physical media, such as CDs, and sharing content with others without a license to do so, are all acts of piracy. Recognizing that piracy strips billions of dollars from the music industry, the RIAA has turned to the courts to discourage piracy. By enacting stricter laws and harsher penalties on websites, the RIAA has successfully shutdown some of the major file sharing networks. However, their efforts seem futile. Musicmetric’s research report indicates that using the courts as a scare tactic, does very little (Chmielewski, 2012). Also, as a result, new websites are readily available every day and old networks continually resurface by way of making small changes to their names and IP addresses. The promotion of licensed streaming sources is another way the music industry and the RIAA has tried to combat piracy. Companies like Pandora are legal and allow people to stream music for free. However, these companies force users to listen to ads to access free content or they must pay a fee. For some, the ads are a nuance to listen to, and as a result, they often turn to piracy. Also, streaming music can come at a high