by Julius Albert Custodio

Created on: February 18, 2009   Last Updated: February 21, 2009

Music is like food to me, I can't live without it.

As a person who downloads music legally on a daily basis, I think this act is completely ethical. There's a horrible stigma attached to downloading music off the internet, and it's been bothering me because I do download some mp3 files every once in a while. As long as you don't distribute copies and sell them off as your own, then in my humble opinion there's no harm in downloading these mp3s. Some people tend to have prejudice on this system, quickly raising the piracy card the moment they hear the word "download".

Of course, as I've said, you have to keep the music to yourself and not make multiple copies for sale, otherwise, you're contributing to music piracy, which is in fact a crime. There are people out there who do these things exactly as I describe them.

Honestly, I can't afford to buy a lot of new CDs in the record stores, but when I am a big fan of the artist, I really shell out some cash to buy the original album. That's my simple way of showing support. But there are artists out there who are signed in independent labels who depend on the power of the internet as a simple way of marketing their stuff to the public. Their fate (and subsequent popularity) lies at the hands of those who would download their music. Often, there's no other way for them to get far in the music scene.

I think that's only fair. In a marketing perspective, there's a big difference from one artist with a big label to back him up and one who can only dream of becoming popular by distributing his songs over the internet. Websites such as MySpace and YouTube can ultimately make a struggling artist's dream of becoming a star come true.

To tell you frankly, most of these independent artists are quite talented, sometimes even more so than the commercial and mainstream ones! Most of these people make their own music from scratch. They don't have big recording studios to rehearse their songs or a professional songwriter to make their songs for them. If somebody completely bans the proliferation of mp3 via the web, it will seriously crush the dreams of many talented people whose only way of making their music heard is through free downloads.

There's nothing more to add here. I just want it known that I completely support the act of downloading music off the internet, simply because I know how much this system helps the "small fish" in the musical ocean of mainstream artists.

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