File Sharing

Download or Down-NO

For the last decade, internet file sharing continues to rise and so does the big debate on whether file sharing an issue for the music industry?

Music download has become hugely popular in this century with the statistics of 280 million out of the total 386 million file downloaded illegally, however is it popular with the industry? There may not be a clear answer to whether music file sharing is affecting the music industry as there are many mix opinions by record labels, companies, artists and consumers on it. People believe that record labels and companies are the ones being affected the most as it’s their money at risks and being lost with $12.5 billion of economic being lost every year, most labels and companies agree and are against file sharing as it’s losing them profit and in consequence, recently “record labels have asked broadband provides to collect data on illegal downloads”. On the other hand former record label exec Ethan Kaplan stated “yes it leads to more sales”, which shows that record labels could be gaining money, so are record labels or companies the ones being affected?

Majority of views are that the artists are the victim because they spend their time and money to products music that we all enjoy and give us the best quality that they afford, a lot of artists feel this way and have shared their views such as Michael Jackson states “it is wrong to illegally download but the answer cannot be jail” and even UK’s newbie Professor Green is generally against it with a numbers of 43, 314,568 downloads in the UK. Surprising there are some artists that are not offended and believe that file sharing is a good thing, Lady Gaga doesn’t mind that people download her music for free and says that big artists earn more on tour, “$50 million for one cycle of two years' touring” (Source: Techdirt) and Nelly Furtado states: “if you love music, you’re going to make it anyway and you’re going to find an audience”. Profits in other eyes are the main goal to them making music and others just want to spread their talent across the world.

The consumers are the most important people in the music industry as their opinion matters and I, the consumer have mixed opinions but surely I believe that file sharing isn’t wrong, we are living in the recession and music lovers like me may find it hard to purchase music as they don’t have the funds to pay and when stores like HMV are closing down it makes it even harder to purchase a hard copy. I feel like technology is developing every day and file sharing is a new and quick way to enjoy music and just like Neil Young “piracy is the new radio”.  Free downloading promotes artists and could possibly lead to further purchase; it also allows the consumer to pick which songs they want instead of paying for the whole album. There are many websites such as filestube, 4shared and boxnet that has a large range of music to download from even the music that cannon be accessed in hard copy, this makes file sharing easier and more reliable. A small part of me thinks that free downloading is wrong because it’s illegal and may be an insult to the artist which could lead to the artist refusing to produce any more like Prince. I get the impression that the rate of file sharing may discourage up and coming artists because Lady Gaga’s comment was only for big and well-known artists and that means music piracy could affect other artists as they are not on Lady Gaga’s level. Also certain website can cause very nasty viruses that could destroy PC. Finally I believe that music piracy is not the problem with the music industry, I believe its money being lost or gained with music piracy that’s the issue.

Benedicte Beya