Theft.

   Piracy.   What comes to mind when you hear this term?  I’ll admit when I first heard this word as a kid, I immediately thought of pirate ships and battles fought.  Of course this is just my naïve mind.  I eventually learned the true meaning of piracy (within the music industry): stealing music and reproducing it.  Absolutely, 100% illegal.  With the shift to digital, piracy has proven to be a huge issue.  The accessibility of music online is amazing and with just a couple of clicks here and there, you can have endless possibilities of music, right in the palm of your hands.  Now to take a closer look at the problem…how prevalent is piracy in the US?  What are the consequences or actions taken towards someone who steals music?

After doing some investigation on piracy, I was able to find some staggering statistics through the RIAA’s (Recording Industry Association of America) website.

• “Since peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 53 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.0 billion in 2011.”

• “From 2004 through 2009 alone, approximately 30 billion songs were illegally downloaded on file-sharing networks.”

According to the Huffington Post, the US is the country with the most unauthorized music downloads.   The number of BitTorrent downloads is 96.68 million.  Fun fact: Drake is the most downloaded artist.  To this day, most of my friends obtain their music illegally.  Growing up, sites such as Limewire and Frostwire were extremely popular.  If you didn’t want to pay for your music (and didn’t care about the software those companies used), these were the websites to use.  However, they frequently did harm to your computer by supplying obnoxious viruses…hence why I never utilized these services.  There are certainly various ways to obtain mp3 files other than using these sites.  Two that I’m familiar with include ListenToYouTube.com and Dirpy.com.  I mean, I’ll admit…I have used both of these sites.  Pretty frequently actually now that I’m a broke college student.  With these sites, you are copying the YouTube link of a music video and pasting it into this website.  The quality of the music isn’t as great compared to buying the track, but it still works.

Earthfest music festival in Boston, May 2012

 

So what exactly are the consequences you might ask?  The RIAA clearly describes the penalties—both criminal and civil.  They state, “criminal penalties for first-time offenders can be as high as five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.”  On the other hand, “civil penalties can run into many thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees. The minimum penalty is $750 per song.”  I don’t know about you, but that is a TON of money to be handing over for even just ONE illegally downloaded song.  I also found discovered from a website called Infographics Showcase that “in less than two years the RIAA has sent copyright infringement notices to 1.8 million internet subscribers and 269,609 to colleges and universities in the US.  At least these notices warn users ahead of time that they are being watched and to be careful of their actions on the internet.  From my own experiences, none of my friends have been caught from illegally downloading music.  I just know that there have been many people experiencing harmful viruses on their computers.  The likelihood of you getting caught is slim, but it is definitely something to take into consideration, just as you hit that button.  Joel Saxe reminded me of a case in Boston that happened a few years ago involving a Boston University student.  Joel Tenenbaum owed $675,000, between 4 record companies, for downloading 30 songs illegally.  Side note, he downloaded hundreds of other songs, but the court only focused on 30.  According to ABC News, “the case is only the nation’s second music downloading case against an individual to go to trial.”  It goes to show how rare news like this is publicized.

In the end, not only are you potentially hurting yourself financially, but you are causing a huge blow to the music industry.  It’s not just the artists producing the music—it’s the entire industry!  You have to think about the songwriters, engineers, producers, publishers, and plenty of other jobs.  It has a massive effect on the US economy.   Annually, there is a 12.5 billion dollar deficit, as well as more than 70,000 lost jobs and $2 billion in lost wages to American workers, according to a study conducted by the Institute for Policy Innovation.  It’s incredible to realize the harm of piracy and what the results of it are.

Piracy issues in Great Britain