Tom's Views

I’m heavily into music listening, manipulating the music files for better sound, DJing for friends, and so on.  So very often, the issue of   music piracy   comes up, when people ask that I copy some of the songs in my music collection for them.  The following are my responses and reasoning for why I do not copy music for anyone, period. 

• The record industry could sell music cheaper if not for all the music piracy and having to recover the losses from that stealing.
• Barring the differences between how music piracy and other forms of theft are physically carried out, music piracy is identical to shoplifting.
• The fact that music piracy is easier to perpetrate than other forms of shoplifting may make it even more wrong to execute, not less wrong. 
• It seems that it’s more wrong to take advantage of a person or an industry that cannot adequately defend itself against such theft.  Put another way: It would certainly be more offensive to steal from a blind man than to steal from someone that is fully aware of what you’re doing; though stealing in both cases is equally wrong. 
• One estimate that store prices for CDs is are ten to twenty percent higher than they’d be without shoplifters.
• We all pay for music piracy.  But some pay far less than others.  This implies a major travesty.  The honest people (those who are unwilling to cheat by making illegal copies of music) pay the most therefore, for music.  But unfortunately the music robbers pay the least because through the very act of stealing the music, they circumvent all the measures the music industry could take to fully collect on the music they sell.
• Some justify giving copies of the music on the CDs they own to others by citing how rich some artists have become, and how making copies of their music would not hurt them significantly.  But the most popular artists tend to be pirated the most, as their music is in the highest demand. 
• Besides, how rich or poor the victim of theft is does not affect the rightness or wrongness of the theft.  Stealing is always wrong whether you steal from a king, or a janitor. 
• Would it be any more right to steal a mink coat from a well-to-do store such as Macey’s, than to steal a candy bar from that mom and pop establishment down the street?  
• The music industry appears to be in rapid decline due in large part to the rampant music piracy that plagues it.  This is sad, because I’m a big fan of recorded music, and I fear that this decline in revenue share will eventually trigger a decline in availability and overall quality of the music that is produced. 
•  In 1999 through 2002, the music industry saw a 25% recession in its legal sales and distribution of recorded music  (details here).  With poor economic growth prospects so ubiquitous these days across most industries, and since music is fast becoming perceived as one of those luxury items that people can do without if their finances say that they must, the music industry continues to suffer recession today in 2011. 
• Music piracy is dishonest because those who obtain the music in this way do not have to work as hard to get it as those who actually pay for legal copies. 
• The music pirates get the music for nothing essentially, and where’s the fairness in that? 

As is hopefully quite obvious by now, I’m strongly opposed to music piracy for the reasons given, and many others besides. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Giving Away Copied Music Is Stealing!

References

• History of Music Piracy   on Wikipedia
• Music Piracy   definition on Wikipedia
• Music Piracy Stats   from the RIAA  

Even if you make no money from   giving away copies of your music,   you’re still   stealing the music   because you’re costing the industry money by giving people music who then, need not buy it themselves.  The fact that you’re making no profit from this musical giveaway is no defense.  Even though you do not benefit from this musical theft, make no mistake that you’re nonetheless just as culpable for stealing music. 

Giving away copies of your purchased music thus, translates into lost revenue for the music industry.  Indeed since digital music has become so widely available, and so easily copied, the music industry has significantly shrunk in terms of how much sales revenue it generates.  A record company executive on CNN a while back talked of all the lay-offs that have occurred because of this sort of widespread music piracy. 

Also, you can’t be altruistic with something that’s not yours to give away in the first place.  When you buy a CD (compact disc), you’re not buying distribution rights to that music; only the right to retain, back up, and listen to it yourself.  The actual music is not yours to pass around, even though you bought a copy of it.  This “kindness” to one group (our friends) is hurting another group (the people who produce and sell the music).  Admittedly, few music industry lawyers would come after you for giving copies of music to a few friends.  But this giving-is-still-stealing principle still applies. Ironically, though your act of giving away music may be well-intentioned, this giveaway is stealing nonetheless.  In short: You should not give away something that’s not yours because any kindness contained in this giving act is more than offset by the wrongness of the implied theft. 

Now with all that said, I believe that Apple went too far with its DRM (digital rights management) schemes.  DRM as it was prevented us from playing our music on more than a few computers at a time, it supplied audio and video file formats that could only be played on iPods, and it barred us from easily converting the DRM-encoded music into other formats.  But I’m certain that Apple had to devise DRM to get the music industry to agree to allow them to sell the music in the iTunes music store.  So, Apple was not the only party responsible for the overly restrictive implements of digital rights management of media / music files. 

Further, this whole business about having to buy a ringtone from the industry just so you can get a song onto your cell phone is crazy.  If I already own the music, why should I have to pay for it again just to get it in ring-tone format? 

IMHO, people abused the free availability of “copyable” music, and the industry over-reacted by making it too hard for honest people to manage their music libraries as they wish.  I’m glad that the trend is away from DRM.  But that won’t last if people keep making illegal copies of music and distributing them to friends.  Copying an iTunes library (or any other music repository) is illegal if you don’t own the copyrights to the music in it.   You’re not allowed to copy music from someone else, even for a short time.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• How To Copy Songs From Multiple iPods Into iTunes Library
• Music Piracy Thoughts