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Grand Theft Audio

Is the age of digital music going to single-handedly topple the music industry? Should art be free? Is free music ethically acceptable? In his article "Music for Nothing," Jesse Walker addresses the related issues of music downloading and music piracy, and he discusses the conflict surrounding them. He asserts that the free digital music era is, much like disco, another phase, in which music listeners would prefer to download free digital music from the Interneta preference that the music industry has initially decided to attack rather than accommodate. According to Walker, this phase will have either a liberating or a destructive effect on music as we know it. Either free music will crumble the control of big business and the industry itself, thereby liberating music and placing the control in the hands of artists and listeners, or free music will eliminate the desire of musicians to create and record music by ruining their sources of income. Since musicians also objected to having music played freely on the radio when it first gained popularity, out of fear that people would not pay for music, Walker believes that the industry will adapt to this new online downloading phase. Examining mostly the peer file sharing program Napster, as well as several other alternatives that are continually surfacing, he suggests that this new wave can actually turn around to benefit artists seeking popularity. If anything, this change could only help music as it becomes more accessible and thus more widely used. Since this downloading is not technically illegal and people do not consider it to be immoral, the phenomenon will only continue to increase as technology creates more and more avenues. Ultimately, people believe that art should be free and they will not pay for something they do not have to (30-37). Walker is correct to point out that free music and the Internet are changing the music industry drastically.

While the Internet will not ruin music, it certainly will change the industry. When the popularity of downloading hit its peak around the turn of the century, peer-to-peer file-sharing programs such as Napster were so widely used that entire campus networks were effectively shut down. The downloading craze consumed all of the bandwidth, leaving room for little else. A few years and several lawsuits later, music downloading has stabilized. While piracy undoubtedly still exists, there are many more ethical alternatives

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