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Claire Northall
10/29/03 Civics Mrs. DiCamillo
The Benefits of File Sharing
It had been reported that two out of ten Americans are downloading music from the Internet. The study, done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, also found that 71 percent of downloaders, ages 18 to 29, were not concerned that their actions were violating copyright laws and were therefore illegal. I am one of those Americans. Despite the legality of the issue, I do not find free MP3 file sharing unethical. I support it because it benefits the independent artists, it encourages artists to create better albums, and there has yet to be satisfactory legal alternatives that are worth paying for. The complex and confusing issue of MP3 file sharing started in 1999, when Northeastern University freshman Shawn Fanning created the first MP3 file sharing network, Napster (Salt Lake Tribune, "Illegal File-Sharing Persists"). The system operated using a central server that stored all the music files. Users could then access and download the music to their hard drives. The federal courts eventually shut down Napster, stating that the service violated the copyright laws by distributing music without legal consent. Software programs like Kazaa, LimeWire, and Morpheus have risen to replace Napster, utilizing a peer-to-peer file sharing network where a user directly downloads music files from other users' hard drives. There is no central server, making the software that the file-sharing services run not illegal and harder to shut down. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has recently responded to these services with a harsh and aggressive campaign of lawsuits against offenders that included a Yale University professor, a 12 year-old girl, and a 71 year-old man (FOXNews.com, "Record Industry Sues Music File Swappers"). Most of the defendants say that they didn't understand that they were violating copyright laws. According to www.legal-database.com, downloading music, movies, games, or software from the Internet without paying and then sharing these materials with appropriate permission is considered a breach of copyright laws. The site goes on to define the Copyright Act of 1976; "The Copyright Act confers on creators of original works a limited monopoly in their works of authorship to advance an important public purpose. It is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors by the provision of a special reward, and to allow the public access to the products of their genius after the limited period of exclusive control has expired." However, there is the fair-use clause, which says that it is the privilege of others to use copyrighted material for nonprofit educational purposes or to make copies of the material for their own personal use (i.e. burning your CDs onto your hard drive and then re-mixing the tracks to create a personalized disc). Whatever the legalities of MP3 file sharing, there are benefits for artists, especially the independent, "underdog" artists not yet signed on a record label. As Mike Errico, a musician who has made albums both with mainstream and independent labels, says, "It helps musicians immensely. The huge carrot that's put over the heads of artists is distribution and availability of their work. There's very little else a record label actually guarantees." (FOXNews.com, "Is Downloading Killing Albums One Song at a Time?") The file sharing has created an era where fans can access their favorite bands' music without having to be under the thumb of the major record labels. It gets artists' names out into the public community, giving them free publicity. They can get the music straight to the fans without having to deal with the "middle man" of record labels. Besides offering availability to artists, MP3 file sharing has forced a change in the quality of albums. "How many times have you bought a pop music record to find there are maybe two, maybe three songs you really like?" asks Mark Coleman, a former music reviewer for Rolling Stone. "People don't want to pay $18 for one song." The high prices and low quality of albums drove consumers to seek alternatives like downloading so they could hear their favorite songs. Coleman goes on to say, "Albums are too long. There are too many mediocre songs and they're too expensive…In the early '90s, we noticed that the best songs were at the beginning of a CD and then it would drop off." (FOXNews.com, "Is Downloading Killing Albums...?") The music file sharing has compelled artist put together better albums with better quality of tracks. Thirdly, I support free music downloading because the legal, fee-based services are either not widely available or viable, convincing programs. Apple computer's iTunes program is being touted as "a monster success" yet only a small percentage of Americans use Macs compared to PCs, and an even smaller number have the operating system necessary to run iTunes. (FOXNews.com, "Is Downloading Killing Albums..?") On iTunes you have the option to buy the songs a la carte for $0.99 each or by the album. But in order to balance the cost of an album with only five songs with one that has 25, many of the albums are incomplete or don't have all the original songs. (Salt Lake Tribune, "Illegal File Sharing Persists Online…") Besides iTunes, there are multiple other legal services where you can purchase and download music. However, these services have only a tenth of the variety of songs that are found on peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa. I have tried some of the legal services free three day trial, but I could not find any of the rare or foreign music that I prefer such as J-Pop (Japanese pop) or soundtracks from Japanese animation movies that are so easy to find on Kazaa. Another issue is that restrictions and pricing structures are different for each service, which leads to much confusing. Pressplay.com, for example, has unlimited but non-burnable songs for $9.95 per month. Once your subscription runs out, however, your downloaded music is worthless and you no longer have access to it. If you want to burn those songs, you have to buy them in packages; five songs for $5.95, ten for $9.95, and 20 for $18.95. Rhapsody at listen.com also charges $9.95 a month, as well as a $0.79 charge per song. And even if you can burn a song, there are limits to the number of burns. On Rhapsody, it is twice. On iTunes, you can burn a song any number of times, but a playlist of songs can only be burned 10 times. (USAToday.com, "Legal Music-Downloading Sites") These services boast to have musical libraries of anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 songs. However, they lack a wide selection of my favorite American artists and any of my foreign bands. This, as well as the confusing guidelines, discourages me from using these sites. I'd rather go buy the album in a record store than try and deal with them. Opponents of free MP3 file sharing argue that it causes widespread damages to the entire music industry. They blame downloaded music and music burned onto recordable CDs for the RIAA's statistic of a 15.8 percent drop in music shipments compared to last year. (Salt Lake Tribune, "Illegal File Sharing Persists…") However, there are many other reason to account for the flailing record sales. In interviews with executives of recording labels in the New York Times, they cited problems such as the lack of a widely popular musical trend like teen-pop, the consolidation of radio stations (which make it hard to expose new bands), the poor economy, and competition for the limited time and money of young Americans, who prefer buying DVD's, video games, or clothes. (New York Times, "Executives Can See Problems Beyond File Sharing") Also, the " widespread damage" is not so drastic as the industry portrays. According to a sales-tracking company Soundscan, are down only by 8.7 percent compared to the same time last year. The New York Times also says that "the specter of a 15.8 percent shipments of CD's provided by the record industry illustrates only how many CD's record labels are sending to stores." There was a study done by Jupiter Research of file sharing users where 16 percent said they spend more on CD's after downloading music. When there are a reported 60 million downloaders, 16 percent is a significant number. The RIAA is exaggerating its figures. I believe the industry executives are more worried about their own profit margins than any damages to the industry as a whole. I am aware of the current illegal status of participating in free MP3 file sharing networks like Kazaa. However, participating can still be moral, ethical, and, in some aspects, beneficial to artists. I believe in free file sharing because it encourages artist to create better music, the legal alternatives are not worth paying for yet, and it helps out poorer, independent artist with distribution and availability of their music. This topic is likely to grow in importance as more and more aspects of our lives take place in the ambiguous legalities of the Internet. Congress and the federal courts will probably find itself confronted more and more with cases dealing with enforcing the law over the Internet. One thing is certain though; downloading songs from online has become just another part of the music experience in our culture. Legal or not, it's here to stay.
Bibliography
1) Associated Press. "Downloaders Don't Think About Copyright Laws." FOXNews.com.1 Aug. 2003. 27 Oct. 2003 <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,93508,00.html>. 2) ---. "Record Industry Sues Music File Swappers." FOXNews.com. 9 Sept. 2003. 27 Oct 2003. <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,96796,00.html>. 3) Horiuchi, Vince. "Illegal File Sharing Persists Online Even as Legal Services Emerge." Salt Lake Tribune 27 Oct. 23.. 27 Oct. 2003 <http://www.sltrib.vom/2003/Oct/01272003/Monday/Monday.asp?display=print>.
4)
"Intellectual Property Law and File Sharing." Legal-Database.com.
28 Oct 28 5) Komando, Kim. "Legal Music-Downloading Sites." USA Today. 25 Aug. 2003. 26 Oct 2003 <http://www.komando.com/kolumns_show.asp?showID=5281>. 6) Lehner, Maria. "Is Downloading Killing Albums One Song at a Time?" FOXNews.com. 2 July 2003. 27 Oct 2003 < http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,90990,00.html>. 7) Strauss, Niel. "Executives Can See Problems Beyond File Sharing." New York Times. 9 Sept. 2003. 27 Sept. 2003 <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10A12FB3F5F0C7A8CDDA00894DB404482>.
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