by New Age Content

Created on: October 17, 2009

Downloading music is unethical and really makes it difficult for artists to even break into the music industry. Piracy discourages the discovery of new music because it discourages new music. A band just starting out, that has spent months working on an album in their garage or home studio, tries to sell one hundred copies on line and people just start uploading it to lime wire. Now anybody can find any song for free on line and just listen to it through many services.

There is no question that the music industry has been completely reformed to deal with digital file sharing however some good new models have arisen. Pandora radio and Groove shark provide services that are legal, dish back profits to musicians and play all kinds of new music free for the listener. They are great alternatives to downloading illegal files and databasing them.

Many people take advantage of music file sharing hoarding gigabytes of music on hard drives and downloading music they don't even listen to. It is a behavior that is surely unethical from a musician's standpoint. Of course artists want fans and listeners, but they don't want fans that just steal their music when they want to listen to it instead of buying it for less than pennies per listen.

The main concern is if music piracy could implode the industry from the inside. Could artists get so discouraged by the practice of theft that it destroys the idea of music for commercial purposes. Maybe this would be a good thing for music and return music to the art it once was. Artists have given up and now just have to focus on touring. This really hurts the music industry and makes it harder for everyone to find steady work and enough pay. Piracy is going to revolutionize the industry and has already started.

There is no difference between walking into a CD store, finding a CD you like and just pocketing the CD and walking out the door and downloading a song from lime wire. It is unethical to steal physical merchandise, why not digital merchandise. People should really think about the artists who make music and contribute money to fund them and support them. Stealing music from incredibly large artists may not make much of a difference but the fact that little artists have to constantly worry about paying the next bill so they can make another single always have to compete with the idea of having their music leaked and shared within a community of people or fans in an area.

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