Negative affects of piracy on the music industry - Essay Example

Negative affects of piracy on the music industry Before the invention of blank tape, it was not yet possible to duplicate a record. If you want to hear music, then you either have to buy it or play it in a friend’s house. From the vinyl to cassette tape, it was really hard to copy music content. Then, initially, compact discs – the precursor of modern music formats - were hard to copy as well - when it surfaced in Europe and Japan in 1982 and in the United States. However, over the past twenty years, technology has advanced so drastically. Three technologies have emerged that have driven piracy to the top of the music industry’s agenda today: the writable CDs, the mp3 compression algorithms and the P2P protocols. The combined power of these technologies led to the proliferation of file-sharing applications that enable people to download music and other multimedia content from the Internet for free. Since the year 2000, studies have shown that music piracy has significant negative effects in the music industry. Definition The convenience, the quality, speed and the nearly unlimited prospects for dissemination is unprecedented. As music is being shared for free through the Internet, the music industry began to feel the adverse consequence and start taking action on what would be popularly known as music piracy. The organization called, the Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) (2006), defined music piracy as the “deliberate infringement of copyright and/or trade marks for commercial gain. It covers both physical and Internet piracy.”1 A more specific definition by MIPI states that any music compressed, posted and transmitted globally via the Internet without permission of the rights holder are illegal and constitutes the so-called Internet piracy. The computer and the Internet technologies have increased the ease in which files – documents, audio, video and among others – are transferred because of its ability to digitize large files into compact, high-quality ones. This meant that any file could be copied and widely distributed in a matter of minutes if not seconds. The consequence of this technological capability is that branded digital content is now only a click away – free for the taking. This is mostly true when we talk about music. The peer-to-peer (P2P) principle and its applications must be underscored here because it is an important variable in the incidence of music piracy. P2P was developed by the 19-year old high school student, Shawn Fanning, when he invented Napster to share music with his friends. The central idea is that by connecting individual computers through the platform’s central servers, it was possible to browse through thousands of different MP3 files, which could then be downloaded to your hard drive directly from someone else’s. The emergence of Napster launched a number of peer-to-peer music sharing services such as Kazaa, Limewire, Bearshare, Emule and Morpheus, among others enabled people to download music in the principle of peer-to-peer music sharing. Here, millions of unauthorized copies of sound recordings are available on music files that utilize a compression process known as MP3. 2 Negative Effects Music piracy engenders a humungous turnover. According to the Institute of Policy Innovations, global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings, and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues, $291 million in personal income tax and $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes. (RIAA) China, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), is the world’s worst offender, with an estimated 90 percent of the music discs and tapes that are being manufactured and sold there are illegal. (Broadcast Engineering 2004) Russia, Brazil, Spain and Mexico round up the top five hotbeds of music piracy. Presently, the global sales in music is in decline. Experts argue that this trend is not due to a fall in the popularity of recorded music but, instead, there is a devaluation of music by mass copying and music piracy. (Frith and Marshall 2004) The adverse economic impact prompted the US Congress to take notice and interfere in some cases. In 2003, an article from CNET reported that: Congress has been completely convinced that rampant copyright infringement threatens to destroy the American economy. Having internalized this threat, Congress is now determined to fix the problem the only way it knows how – to threaten ordinary citizens with jail, despite collateral consequences.3 For the music industry, the file-sharing phenomenon in the Internet is depriving the recording artists, composers and authors as well as the record labels of their right to pick the value of their creative property in a free and open market. (MIPI) In addition performers and recording companies are at risk of gaining bad reputation out of the customers’ dissatisfaction with counterfeit products. Then the government loses its revenue while the legitimate music producers were being unfairly robbed of their investment, leading them to eventually suffer bankruptcy. Actions Record labels are actually struggling to manage piracy with varying degrees of success. Depending on the specific situation, it is sometimes possible to proactively avoid the loss of revenue by identifying unauthorized use and distribution of digital assets. When an unlicensed music copy is distributed through websites, some companies and industry associations have not only recouped “lost” revenues, but they’ve even added incremental revenue streams by turning these content distributors into licensees. Then, the record industry started to produce CDs that will not play on computers. Finally, the music industry, in cooperation with several governments, is using the courts to shutdown file-swapping systems and so far has enjoyed some successes. Some industry bigwigs have already opted to take legal action against providers that encourages the free distribution of music, as seen in the legal suits involving Napster and mp3.com. If, Peter Biddle, Paul England, Marcus Peinado and Bryan Willman will be asked about these efforts at curbing music piracy, they said it would fail. They cited the growing speed capability of the Internet as a major factor. Such speed would supposedly outstrip the attempts to shut them down. In addition they cited the growth of instant messaging systems, which, according to them, would contribute to the gradual loss of control for the music industry. Why Download Illegal Music? Even though downloading music is illegal, people are still compelled to engage in the activity. A PEW research places 35 million American adults – about 29 percent of Internet users - use file-sharing software, noting that: Young adults are the least likely to express concern about the copyrights of the files they share with others… In each age group, a plurality if not an outright majority of each group say that they are unconcerned about copyright of the files they share online.4 Apparently, most users who download music from peer-to-peer platforms do so because it is convenient. For example, a respondent in a survey exploring people’s preference and perspectives stressed that he downloads music frequently because: the music/artist is obscured or hard to find; he wants to sample the music before buying a CD; and he only wants a specific song from an album. (Wicknick 2009) Another dimension in people’s lukewarm response to the criminalization of music piracy is that it supposedly encroaches the right of the people to access information, which for many is what the world wide web is all about. John Perry Barlow, an advocate against the music industry’s campaign in music piracy wrote to the governments and the industry that campaigns against music piracy: cyberspace was “naturally independent of tyrannies you seek to impose on us… Your legal concept of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are based on matter. There is no matter here. (Doherty 2004). Specifically, commenting on music piracy, he argued that “if you don’t have something that assures fair use, then you don’t have a free society. If all ideas have to be bought, then you have an intellectually regressive system that will assure you a highly knowledgeable elite and an ignorant mass.” Critique However bleak the news is in regard to music piracy, there are commentators who claim that the net effects of music piracy could be positive in the long run. The gist of their argument is that the increased accessibility of music files is a convenience that people are willing to pay for. This would, in effect, help drive growth in music sales. (Murray 2003) Here, sales of portable music players are one indicator that there is a growth in consumer demand for digital music downloads – a development that could usher in a new era in online music subscriptions. In a statement, for instance, released by Matt Phillips, the British Phonological Institute’s Director of Communication, it was stated that every illegal download is not entirely a lost sale. This particular statement supported the observation that the music industry is hyping up the issue of music piracy and its negative effects. So far, the body of literature that we have – statistics and various researches on the subject matter were dominated by works commissioned by the music industry itself. Hence, it is easy to understand why people see the traces of bias. Conclusion All in all, the negative effects of music piracy seem to outweigh its benefits. It is not difficult to believe the numerous literatures on the subject: piracy is killing the music industry. First, piracy obviously deprives the artists their hard-earned money. Then besides the parties directly affected, the consumer themselves suffer as well. First, a customer would have to pay a bigger amount of money to buy music legally. Secondly, it discourages record labels, composers and those involved in creative process of music production to be innovative because of the limitations posed by the financial difficulty. The music industry has already experimented with numerous schemes in order to curb music piracy. However, any of them do not seem to work successfully except of the technical modifications on the recording (e.g. adding a digital signature on the CD). Besides this, it appears that concerned organizations and agencies must also focus on the education of people especially in regard to the negative effects of music piracy and how they are indirectly affected as well. Then there is the issue of enforcement of laws and policies governing music and its piracy. These are two strong aspects that must be addressed in order to check the growth of music piracy. Bibliography Broadcast Engineering. “Music Piracy Hits Record Level Globally.” Broadcast Engineering Online. 17 Feb 2009 http://broadcastengineering.com/audio/music-piracy-IFPI-2003-20041001/ Doherty, Brian. (2004). John Perry Barlow 2.0 The Thomas Jefferson of cyberspace reinvents his body -- and his politics. Reason Online. 17 Feb 2009 < http://www.reason.com/news/show/29236.html> Doolan, Mark, “Turntable Revolution.” Yoosk. 18 Feb. 2009 < http://www.yoosk.com/answered-theme-detail/45.aspx> Frith, Simon and Marshall, Lee. (2004). Music and Copyright. Google Books. 19 Feb. 2009. Goldman, Eric, Congress, “The new copyright bully.” CNET. 19 Feb. 2009, from < http://news.cnet.com/2010-1071_3-5060347.html> MIPI, “What is Music Piracy?” Music Industry Piracy Investigations. 17 Feb 2009, from < http://www.mipi.com.au/about_piracy/musicpiracy.htm> RIAA, “Piracy: Online and On The Street.” RIAA. 18 Feb 2009 http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php Madden, Mary and Lenhart, Amanda, Internet and American Life. Pew Internet. 18 Feb. 2009, from Murray, Brian., “Defending the Brand” Google Books. 18 Feb 2009, Wicknick, Darcie- Nicole, “The RIAA Music Downloading Controversy: Both Sides of the Record” MusicBizAdvice.com. 19, Feb 2009 Read More