What do you think of when you hear the word pirates? Most people think of grungy, dirty sailing men who would have stopped at nothing to get what they want; several hundred years ago. The word pirate today however has taken on an entirely new image. Many normal people just like you and me have been branded as pirates by the multi-billon dollar music industry. In the past few years mass amounts of media attention, money and time have been poured into this controversial issue. But what is this battle about, who is fighting it, why is it a problem and who are the real pirates?
File sharing is a relatively new technological phenomenon that has been largely brought about by the now ubiquitous use of computers and the Internet. A file-sharing program allows computer users to connect with each other via the Internet and easily exchange music, pictures, movies and other such files. These programs are easy to maintain and can be found cheap or for free and most importantly are legal to use. However, some of the things that these programs can be used for are illegal. For example, the exchanging of copyrighted materials. This exchange is illegal because according to copyright law, only the copyright holder can distribute his or her materiel. As an example when a person downloads an album via a file-sharing network the copyright holder is most likely not consenting this distribution and is also therefore not making any profit off of it. Essentially, from a legal point of view, this is stealing also known as piracy. However most of the controversy on this subject has not grown from discussions about legality but money.
One of the biggest arguments against file sharing is that musicians are losing money because their fans would rather download songs for free than buy cds. This point has been pushed across very strongly by many of the biggest and most famous bands and record companies. In today's industry, musicians make their money by signing agreements with record companies, who then record, produce and distribute the artists' music. The artists then receive a certain amount of money from the sale of their music. Record companies have reported a drop in cd sales in recent years, which equals a drop in profits for musicians and companies, and have blamed this decline solely on illegal file sharing. However there are many other reasons that could also account for this decline in cd sales. Some of the biggest drops observed were after the year 2001. This drop in sales correlates directly with a general depression of the economy caused by terrorist acts against the United States. Another detail that has not been taken into account in most research is the fact that there are now legal alternatives for downloading copyrighted music on the Internet such as itunes. Sales produced by this medium have been increasing every single year since their inception.
While the voices of major record companies and world famous musicians have been very loud in their opinion on file-sharing another perhaps more important voice has been quietly pushed to the side. This is the voice of the standard musician. These are the artists that spend months of their time touring, writing and recording their music. If you were to ask them, most of these musicians would tell you that if it weren't for file sharing they would not even be a band today. For most bands today, file sharing is a great thing. Most of the music listened to today by young people is not found on radios as in the past. Music and bands are introduced to people mostly by word of mouth advertising. One of the biggest contributions to this type of advertising has been the file-sharing program. Bands are able to have their music distributed around the world to thousands of people at no cost of their own. In fact this distribution brings about more gains in profits for bands than losses. The people that are most against file sharing are those that have already made millions of dollars off of their music.
While the free distribution and file sharing of copyrighted materials is technically illegal there are other issues that have been brought about by its introduction. It is interesting to note that while many small bands support file sharing and are in fact grateful towards it and even owe much of their success to it, the huge multi million dollar industry that exerts its control over these bands opposes it. Taking a step back, it seems there is a much bigger problem to be observed. Who will you support: the honest hardworking musician or the multimillion dollar industry, the choice is yours.