Illegally Downloading Music
Jay Smith
11/13/10
Outline
Music, a very popular trend in our day. There are all types of music; hip hop, rock, rap, pop, etc. With the growing amounts of songs and artists, people want to listen to them more. Therefore they need some source in order to listen to these songs. If downloading music off the internet is considered “illegal”, then why do people have music sharing websites? There are about 500 online services located in 40 countries. With all these websites people should be allowed to download music and let it not be considered stealing. For example: If I walk into a record store, steal a CD and then walk out it is no longer there and no one can have it, it is gone. But on the other hand if I download a song off a music sharing website, many other people can do the same and it is also free! I’ll admit that artists sell their music on programs such as “ITunes” where people pay about a dollar or more for a song, which can help benefit their songs, but who wants to pay that much money for songs? When you download music for free they will get recognized a lot quicker because the community will start sharing with many others and considering that it is free it may be more popular. People over 30 years of age may consider it stealing because at their age, there were no music sharing sites like “Limewire, or Napster”. Instead they would buy CD’s then either copy them on to cassettes or share them with friends. There are also sites like “MySpace” where it is okay to demand free music on a playlist, but it’s not okay on custom playlists just because the contracts aren’t right. Eventually downloading music may not be considered stealing, but until this is ethically wrong, downloading music should not be considered
11/13/10
Outline
Music, a very popular trend in our day. There are all types of music; hip hop, rock, rap, pop, etc. With the growing amounts of songs and artists, people want to listen to them more. Therefore they need some source in order to listen to these songs. If downloading music off the internet is considered “illegal”, then why do people have music sharing websites? There are about 500 online services located in 40 countries. With all these websites people should be allowed to download music and let it not be considered stealing. For example: If I walk into a record store, steal a CD and then walk out it is no longer there and no one can have it, it is gone. But on the other hand if I download a song off a music sharing website, many other people can do the same and it is also free! I’ll admit that artists sell their music on programs such as “ITunes” where people pay about a dollar or more for a song, which can help benefit their songs, but who wants to pay that much money for songs? When you download music for free they will get recognized a lot quicker because the community will start sharing with many others and considering that it is free it may be more popular. People over 30 years of age may consider it stealing because at their age, there were no music sharing sites like “Limewire, or Napster”. Instead they would buy CD’s then either copy them on to cassettes or share them with friends. There are also sites like “MySpace” where it is okay to demand free music on a playlist, but it’s not okay on custom playlists just because the contracts aren’t right. Eventually downloading music may not be considered stealing, but until this is ethically wrong, downloading music should not be considered