by William Menna

Created on: March 13, 2008

The Recording Industry Association of America has been adamant in its attempt to curb peer-to-peer music downloading. In a rash of lawsuits against file-sharers, the RIAA claims to fight the noble fight, defending artists' revenue and intellectual property. The part that they leave out is that the only people who lose out in peer-to-peer downloading are the corporate producers and distributors who make a living by getting rich off of the hard work and talents of others. It follows that not only is downloading music ethical: it is actually beneficial to fans and artists alike.

The dirty secret that the RIAA tries to hide is that music artists actually benefit from peer-to-peer file sharing. The biggest beneficiaries are local bands and other unknown artists - the small businesses of music. Widespread file sharing creates a limitless audience for artists who would never otherwise have a chance to gain popularity and make names for themselves. Downloaders find their music and subsequently give them a chance to make their real money through concert tickets and merchandise sales.

While conventional wisdom held that this would only apply to new and unknown artists, even established names in music are becoming beneficiaries of downloading. Most prominent in this increasingly outspoken group is Trent Reznor and his band Nine Inch Nails. In response to the recording industry's anti-file sharing campaign, the band made nine songs of their most recent album available for free download; they offered the remaining 27 songs for just five dollars independent of any ties to the RIAA.

While the RIAA cries foul with peer-to-peer downloading, they fail to offer a "legitimate" alternative. As they are trying to win back consumers, the music industry is doing a far better job of alienating them. Official downloading services are offering limited and restrictive options for music that you are actually paying for. In music downloading services like Napster and Yahoo, all purchased titles become inaccessible once the service is canceled. Further, files downloaded from official services are inflexible and difficult to convert into more usable formats. As such, users have difficulty using their purchased songs on iPods, CD's, and even between different computers.

Despite this, the RIAA has sued an estimated 15,000 people for either sharing or downloading copyrighted music files. They claim to be offering "equally good" alternatives to peer-to-peer services, but in reality they are offering

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