Music Club Activity #1

[laynie.livejournal.com]

Hey Music Club Members! It's time to have a discussion/debate. It's no secret that in the past 5 or 6 years, the music industry has experienced a sharp downturn, mostly due to peer-to-peer file sharing programs such as Napster. The music industry's largest target market (teens and young adults) have turned to the internet for their music needs, where songs can be downloaded for free. After numerous lawsuits, programs such as ITunes have popped up...where songs can be purchased for a small fee. However, illegal music downloading still continues.

So here's the question: Do you think it's wrong to illegally download music, and why? Do you download any music, legally (ex. ITunes), or illegally (ex. peer-to-peer filesharing programs)?

Note: Everyone's opinions WILL be respected here. And there are good points to be made for both sides of this issue.

Brooke / Gryffindor

Comments

[maegwin-of-hern.livejournal.com]

I'm a little torn in this matter. Generally, I'm not very fond of illegal music downloads, since they are, well, illegal. I'm definitely against downloading movies, but that's a different matter.
However, there's a grey zone in there. Copyrights end after 15 years (which is probably the reason why there's a whole bunch of 80's-cover versions right now), so with all my ignorance of the law there, I think it's no problem downloading older songs. Same with classical music, I think.
Sometimes it happens that I like one or two songs from a band that I normally don't listen to. So what's the point for me to buy a whole CD from which I don't even want to have the majority of songs? True, there are singles, but that's just as pointless to me. I don't listen to just one song over and over again. If I put a CD in my disc player, I want to hear several songs without having to change the CD every five or ten minutes already. Means that if I really buy a single, I'll end up copying it onto my computer and listening to it there. The CD itself is of no further use to me.
And what about songs / albums etc. that you don't even get anywhere else, because they aren't produced anymore? Is it still illegal to download those?

Also: the same companies that complain about their copyrights being violated also make quite a fortune by selling exactly those programmes and software with which downloading is made possible (Sony, for example). That's pretty hypocritical.

Nicola
Hufflepuff