Music Piracy: Should It Be Allowed? .
File sharing is when people share files on their computers with other users. This is done across the internet and made possible by peer-to-peer programs. These files can be anything: pictures, text, pornography, movies, etc. I will be focusing on music. The issue is whether or not music or file-sharing should be legalized.
When I first tried Napster, I was absolutely amazed. With my family's terribly slow internet connection, I would download as much music as I could. I would wait patiently, sometimes 30-45 minutes, for a single song to be downloaded. Then, one day we got a DSL modem and no one could stop me from downloading music. In a rough estimate, I must have downloaded over 30 gigabytes worth of music in the past few years. That's a lot of music, music that I would not have heard, artists I would have not discovered, if it weren't for file sharing.
But all good things come to an end. After losing legal battles with the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and related parties, Napster started deteriorating. Filters prevented certain artists from being listed in searches and if you had songs by certain artists on your computer, you would be banned. I once started up Napster only to be greeted with this message: "YOU HAVE BEEN BANNED BY DR. DRE". Along with thousands of other people, I stopped using the program.
So what was/is the RIAA's deal? What do they have against file-sharing? The RIAA and many artists feel that peer-to-peer file-sharing is a violation of copyright laws and is hurting music sales. Some artists feel that P2P sharing is, simply, stealing. That they feel this way is okay. However, the way they went about handling the situation is highly debatable. For the most part it shows the lack of vision and understanding the RIAA and some musicians have concerning the future of music.
Why are CD sales down? In 2002, there was a 10% decline in record sales.