Assignment #4: What Should Be Done About Illegal Music Downloads?

Alzayer1

Mohammed Alzayer
MrsEngstrom
English 250 RD
Audience: Pop music fans
22 November 2013

Assignment #4: What Should Be Done About Illegal Music Downloads?

Downloading pirated music has been a topic of debate since the early 2000s. While some people do not think of it as stealing, others consider it a crime. Pop music fans are fully aware that illegal downloads are hurting popular culture but they still do it because it is free and easy. An album that costs $14 is found for free in file sharing networks. Meanwhile, some fans justify their preference to illegal downloadswith the reason that legal digital downloads are overpriced. To save the music industry and the popular culturefrom the devastating impact of music piracy, pop fans are left with number of options. They can either pay the current exaggerated prices for their favorite music or switch to streaming services like Spotify. These streaming services generate some profit for the industry but leave the artists with little cuts(McCarthy). Another option is to continue downloading music illegally, which hurt both the industry and the artists. No ideal solution can eliminate music piracy and still makes all parties involved entirely happy. The music industry should set new pricing structure by lowering the cost of tracks on online retailers, and fans should agree to give up some of their privacy by allowing their internet providers to install software that block websites and p2p networks that offer pirated music.

Music piracy is not a new phenomenon. It can be traced back to the 1960s when the compact tape cassette format was introduced. Home cassette recorders became widely available by the mid-1970s, allowing people to re-record original cassettes and share them with friends and family. In 1982, compact cassettes were replaced by a new format that has an enhanced quality known as compact discs (CD)(Janssens, Vandaele, and Vander Beken ). At first, the CD format boosted music sales for its quality and convenience.Illegal music downloads didn’t gain any popularity until personal computers became more advanced and internet broadband connection became much faster. Thistechnological progress made it possible to “rip” CDs tracks in a compressed encoding format called MP3 and share them online through file sharing networks known as peer-to-peer (p2p) networks(Janssens, Vandaele, and Vander Beken ).The popularity of the MP3 format led the music industry to find a new legal way to distribute music digitally through online music retailers(Janssens, Vandaele, and Vander Beken ). Today, a number of online retailers offer legal music downloads, most notably iTunes, Amazon MP3, and Google Play.

While pop fans from all around the globe enjoyed the illegal music download phenomenon, the music industry didn’t take it very well. Illegal downloads caused the industry a revenue decrease from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $6.3 billion in 2009 in the United States alone (Tyler). In a yearly basis, about 71,060 jobs in music are lost in the US as a result of music piracy (Amand). In 2013, a number of pop icons spoke out to the BBC about their concern regarding music piracy. British pop sensation Jessie J expressed her views on the issue by saying that music piracy is “like going to the hairdressers, having your hair cut and running out.”She went further saying that “if people illegally download your album, it's very likely that you won't make another one.” (“Artists..”). Jamaican recording artist Sean Paul compared the situation in the early 1990sto the situation post-internet by saying that “before there was the internet, there were people selling mix tapes and CDs with your music on it - they sell it, they benefit from it.I get promotion out of it, which is a good thing for me, because people like my song and put on a stage show.” In other words, Paul believes that the impact of illegal downloads is worse than that of fake mix tape copies (“Artists..”).

In response to illegal downloads, the music industry tried number of solutions and models which either didn’t work that well or didn’t work at all. At first, the industry tried to threaten people to take legal actions. Campaigns were established by the industry with the help of pop musicians to fight music piracy. None of these actions worked as the illegal downloads kept on becoming more popular over the past decade. One successful model that the industry adopted to reduce music piracy and generate some profit is internet streaming services. Those services include Pandora, Rhapsody, and Spotify. The latter is considered to be the most successful and popular among services of similar purpose (McCarthy). Spotify engages its users into a simple music player interface and offers an online streaming of thousands of songs for free. The downside is the limitation of access and the unwanted advertisements that pop up when listening to a song. However, Spotify offers subscription packages that give unlimited access and no advertisement for up to $9.99 a month (McCarthy). This model has been criticized for how little artists get paid as a result of royalties taken from their cut. Artists receive a “per play” fee of only £0.0012 (about ¢ 0.19) which is nothing compared to what they receive per purchased song in online music retailers (McCarthy). While those streaming services do not seem like the perfect solution, they still generate some revenue to the labels which is better than getting no profit as a result of downloading music illegally.

Pop fansand people in general go for illegal downloads for number of reasons. One of the most common reasons is the exaggerated prices of legal digital downloads when it is possible to get the same songs for free illegally. In 2008, a Los Angles based associate interviewed a 22-year old college student about his music library for an article published by University of California-LA. The student confessed that about 79% of his songs were either acquired from friends or downloaded illegally while the rest were imported from his own CDs (Locke). The student never purchased a song from an online music retailer. When asked if he would pay 99 cents for a song, the student laughed. He justified his laugh that “for a buck, it was worth his time to try to find the song for free.” The student added that the only advantage of legal downloads over illegal downloads is “organization of his library and time-saving (easy to find)” (Locke). The responses of the student are a good presentation of how fans feel about the situation which has to be resolved by the industry.

The first step that the music industry should take in order to reduce illegal music downloads is lowering the prices of the tracks sold in online music retailers, currently at a typical 99 cents per track. According to a 2010 study conducted by University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton professorRaghuramIyengar, many major music labels do not agree with the pricing range established by Apple’s iTunes store and believe that it should be reduced in order to attract more customers. The research suggests a new strategy to be implemented by the industrywhich is to reduce the cost of digital downloads rather than increase them. Iyengar surveyed about 600 digital music consumers and found that “their music purchases would increase sharply at a lower price — so much so that the record labels would actually raise their overall profits by dropping the cost per song”. Iyengar found that the optimal price that should be charged per track is between 30 to 40 cents rather than the 60 to 99 cents charged by iTunes and others (n.pag.). In 2011, American pop artist Lady Gaga, known for her fashion trends and controversies, proved that fans are willing to purchase their favorite songs if they were cheaper. Gaga’s label agreed to reduce her Born This Way album price to a mere $0.99 during its opening week in a deal with Amazon. High profile releases like Born This Way are usually sold for about $12.99, which is higher than the prices of regular releases (Van Camp). The result of this deal was impressive as Born This Way topped the US Billboard 200 Charts with over 1,108,000 copies sold in its first week (“Lady Gaga..”), 440,000 of which came from Amazon 99 cents deal alone (Kafka). At the time, the album became the highest seller in a single week since 50 Cents’ The Massacreopened at 1,141,000 over six years earlier (Caulfield). However, in three weeks, when the deal was over, Gaga’s album sales fell sharply to 49,000 copies, a steep 84% drop (“Lady Gaga..”).

The second step to reduce illegal downloads has already been initiated by the recording and film industry with the help of the Center for Copyright Infringement. In February 2013, it was announced that a new system called Copyright Alert System (CAS) would be activated to go after people who download copyrighted materials illegally (CBS/AP). CAS is basicallysoftware that detects any illegal file sharing and notifies the user upon the occurrence of such activity. If it happens more than six times, drastic steps would be taken by the internet provider such as slowing the user’s connection or redirecting internet traffic. The user has to acknowledge the internet provider about the notice to review an educational video about copyright infringement before being able to surf the internet freely (CBS/AP).AT&T, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Comcast are the only internet providers that have participated in the program so far. CAS faced a heavy criticism from customers, who spoke out through social network such as Twitter, for “invading their privacy”.The director of the Center for Copyright Infringement, Jill Lesser,defended the system saying that it is “meant to educate rather than punish, and direct [users] to legal alternatives”(CBS/AP).

The Copyright Alert System (CAS) program can beautifully support the reduction of legal digital downloads prices for a better future. CAS is a creative idea that should be adopted by internet providers all around the country. The system does not scare the customers off by taking legal actions or demanding fees, but rather educates them on the danger of copyright infringement. Eventually, users would be annoyed by the slow connection and forget about illegal downloads. However, it is up to the industry to reduce the prices and to the users to give up some of their privacy for the sake of CAS. Lady Gaga’s experiment to sell her entire album for99 cents proves that fans are willing to purchase their music for lower prices, though $0.99 is too low. An ideal price that can be afforded by everyone should be investigated and determined by the industry. This solution wouldn’t only reduce illegal downloads, but would also increase revenue for the industry according to Iyengar’s research.

Works Cited

Amand, Jason. "Money College: Downloads, piracy still a thorn for music industry." .DailyFinance, 06 Mar 2010. Web. 7 Nov 2013.

"Artists Give Newsbeat Their Views on Music Piracy."BBC Newbeat. BBC Radio 1, 15 Oct 2013. Web. 21 Nov 2013.

Caulfield, Keith. "It's Official: Lady Gaga's 'Born This Wa'y Sells 1.11 Million." Billboard.Billboardbiz, 31 May 2011. Web.8 Nov 2013.

CBS/AP Staff, writer. "Copyright Alert System launches, ISPs to send notice of illegal downloads."CBS News26 February2013, n. pag. Web.9Nov. 2013.

Iyengar, Raghuram. "Higher Profits for the Major Record Labels? New Research Suggests a Counterintuitive Strategy."Knowledge at Wharton. Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, 20 Jan 2010. Web. 30 Oct 2013.

Janssens, Jelle, StijnVandaele, and Tom Vander Beken. "The Music Industry On (The) Line? Surviving Music Piracy In A Digital Era." European Journal Of Crime, Criminal Law & Criminal Justice 17.2 (2009): 77-96. Academic Search Elite.Web. 30 Oct. 2013.

Kafka, Peter. "Lady Gaga Sells Lots of Cheap Music–And Full-Priced Music, Too." All Things Digital. Dow Jones & Company Inc., 27 May 2011. Web. 8 Nov 2013.

"LadyGaga's ‘Born This Way' sags in sales." Pop & Hiss: The L.A. Times Music Blog. Los Angeles Times, 30 Jun 2011. Web.8 Nov 2013.

Locke, Zac. "How to Save the Recording Industry?: Charge Less."University of California, Los Angeles: SelectedWorks. (2008): n. page. Web.29 Oct. 2013.

McCarthy, Dean. "The Recording Industry as a Loss Leader: How Music Sales Are Used to Sell Other Goods."Music Industries. Birmingham City University, 11 Dec 2011. Web. 8 Nov 2013.

Tyler, Neil S. "Music Piracy And Diminishing Revenues." University Of Pennsylvania Law Review 161.7 (2013): 2101-2150. Academic Search Elite.Web. 30 Oct. 2013.

Van Camp, Jeffrey. "Entire Lady Gaga “Born This Way” album is $0.99 on Amazon." Digital Trends.Designtechnica Corporation, 30 Jun 2011. Web. 8 Nov 2013.