Music Piracy Is a Good Thing Essay Example for Free

Music Piracy Is a Good Thing EssayIf pirating unison hurts musicians income so badly it would show, and after all this time of pirating music it hasnt. Music piracy benefits artists more than it hurts, therefore it should be legal. Music piracy is mostly committed by community who are everyday people who bring forth average income jobs and have families who end up being challenged by big record companies all over transfering music for free. It reckons a bit to greedy when you look at the difference in pay between the artist and the people who peckload the songs. ( ) say that the people who literary pirate the music are more possible to go to the show and buy the albums after downloading music (Ernesto).Also, people who pirate music tracks are very likely to develop an connection to the bands orartists and that will lead to them attending the shows, buying albums and merchandise. When putting this issue in perspective, record companies are just looking for money without each consideration for the ways of getting it. Record companies start suing people who have downloaded music for ridiculous amount of money in attempt to intimidate and become flat off the fellons from downloading music lawlessly. The main groups affected are college kids that dont have the money.Sarah Barg was a sophomore at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Sarah received an email from a label company stating that she owed $3,000 to the arranging Industry Association of America (Bratton). For that amount,, Sarah would be paying $7. 87 for each song. Majority of the songs she pirated were from the eighties and werent even relevant anymore, and yet she was battling record companys in court over them them. Sixty students like Sarah at UNL received the same similar, as well as hundreds sent out to over cardinal other universities across the country. Not knowing ow else to handle the situation, Barg contacted her parents and they had to cover her settlement. I dont know what I w ould have done. Im only 20 course of instructions oldish, says Barg. Well over five hundred students across the states have paid settlements to avoid being sued. I see it as bullying, UNL freshman Andrew Johnson says, Legally, it makes sense, because we dont have the money to fight back. Johnson illegally downloaded one song and settled $3,000 to avoid being sued for one song. The money used came from the 18 year olds college fund and he now has to work both jobs to compensate for his losses.The record companies seem to target those cant fight back. In 2007, major record companies such as Warner music groups, Warner Bros Records, Inc. , and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, tried to sue a young girl from Texas named Whitney Harper for illegally downloading music from file sharing networks on the internet (Malisow). Whitney was at the time was sixteen years old and was being sued for a minimum of $750 per song when Whitney downloaded thirtyseven songs. That is a little over $20,000 a nd she is only sixteen years old.Harper tried to use the Innocent Infringer constitute that would reduce fees to $200 per song. In order to accomplish that, Harper had to prove she was unaware of the copyright laws by claiming that the copyright nonice placed on cds were not on the file sharing networks on the Internet therefore she was unaware. The companies referred to the sixteen-year-old as a long term massive infringer of copyright laws. Harper warned that if the companies won the sideslip that downloading music off the Internet could never be innocent infringement. The Harper case is one the few after many years lock in press release through federal court.The companies had stated they were going to begin transitioning away from suing individuals and find better means of fixing the issue. After years of record companies using an disincentive method to fix the pirating problem, it got them nowhere because the amount of pirates only went up, and the efforts by the companies were in most cases useless. According to the Wall Street Journal, they attempted suing many single mothers, a thirteen-year-old girl, and a dead peope. The late approach is for the companies to work with Internet dish up providers and when music is eing pirated the user receives a warning that they will lose Internet service if they continue(WSJ. com). The companies still reserve the right to sue if someone is a heavy violator or has ignored several warnings, but even with this new system, it still seems like the companies are only out for money, but in an attempt to escape negative attention from the media, they change their approach. According to The Independent, people who illegally download music also spend more money on music, concerts, merchandises than anyone else.The Secretary of State for Business, Peter Mandelson, stated that the record companies new approach to crack down on illegal down loaders by cutting off internet service could potentially harm the music industry more than help it. The people who file share are the ones who are interested in music. They use file sharing as a discovery mechanism. The artists also have meld opinions over file sharing, some such as James Blunt and Lily Allen are anti-piracy and Shakira is pro-piracy(Shields). Sites have come out with monthly bills for unlimited music plans that seem fairer.Some artists dont feel affected by file sharing and support the fact that piracy creates a bigger fan base for them. Bands like Angels and Airwaves have produced free records so copyright wasnt an issue. They figure that the fans will still come see them play and record sales arent the only thing to being in a successful band. Some artists dont seem to realize that. Most artists make plenty off of record sales even with a piracy problem, so court cases and law suits on everyday people by record companies seems a bit greedy and selfish.Even with the new laws, they are still move to stop this unstoppable problem. Today music piracy is referred to as a dead issue. Most cases that are still pending are being dropped. This year a $54,000 fine on a single mother of four was dropped by the U. S. District Court Judge, Micheal Davis, who stated piracy is no longer awful and shocking. The need for deterrence cannot justify a two million verdict for stealing and distributing twenty-four songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music(physorg. om). Thomas Rasset was convicted in 2007 and was tenacious to pay $220,000, but the judge who presided over the trial called off the verdict, saying it was wholly disproportionate and oppressive. Her case was one of the thousands that had actually made it to court. In 2011, with new laws, these cases should not be forgotten about. The people who lost cases should be compensated and apologized to because they did nothing other than have an interest in the artist.