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

[rhowan-jane.livejournal.com]

It is wrong to illegally download music, and I don't use P2P filesharing programs.

NOW. If I wrote a popular song that people wanted to download and share, I would personally be okay with that. I would also PERSONALLY make that music available to people for free on the internet. Meaning if I couldn't sign a recording contract or whatever, I wouldn't.

I can understand, though, how someone would not want their songs freely shared all over the place if they had a contract or had paid for a CD to be made. I really don't like the arguement that music should be available for music's sake, because someone went through the process of creating that, and however much you may enjoy the music and think that was their intent in writing it (for you to enjoy).....it's still, in a way, THEIRS.

If an artist really didn't mind their music being downloaded for free, they would make it legally available for free.

If you refuse to pay $13 or $20 for one song, as I do, that's fine. Don't. An artist has to create more than one song I like before I financially support them. But I'm not going to go and break the law to download their one song I do like as a "TAKE THAT, RECORDING INDUSTRY!", either. It's not effective.

Rhowan//Ravenclaw

[rhowan-jane.livejournal.com]

I'm going to just add this here rather than typing it several times and commenting to multiple people (though I guess there would be more points in that)....
:)

If people downloaded only free songs and did not purchase CDs that were not worth it to them, the recording industry would not be able to point at lost dollars. As long as people download music illegally the record companies can say "that is money we should have had" and they are correct.

If no one were buying or listening to the music, they would be forced to lower CD prices until it was worth it to consumers to purchase.