Technology's Negative Impact On The Music Industry

The advancement of technology leading to the illegal digital copying of music has negatively impacted the music industry by bringing down record sales; however, some proponents state that this issue of digital copying has improved how musicians make money by allowing for alternate ways to make a living with their music. Technology has brought us to a point where anyone with access to a computer and internet is able to download music for free at the click of a button. With a little help from file sharing websites, people are able to share the music that they own. People consciously make the decision to download songs with the sole intention of saving a few dollars while knowing that they negatively affect and reduce the artist’s sales. There is the argument that the illegal downloading of songs is inevitable and serves no benefit to the artist but research shows that that

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that “criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself”. This law combats illegal digital copying of music by setting consequences to dissuade those who attempt to illegally download the intellectual property of others. These consequences include incarceration and fining people large sums of money depending on the amount of content they are downloading and sharing. Illegally copying content is typically not seen as a serious crime by most, so people continue to take the risk. There is the notion that it is almost impossible to track and fine everyone who downloads music so people continue to take part because of the slim chances of there being any