Final Excerpt: Music Copyright

            As technology has advanced, file sharing and piracy has become increasingly easier to do. The internet allows for easy access to various materials such as music, movies, and books. While many people view the easy access to these materials as a good thing, the internet has made it easy to illegally download people’s work. Many people work hard to create these works that are illegally downloaded off the internet. While some people argue that music piracy benefits the artist through exposure, the illegal distribution of an artist’s work harms the artist and the music business.

            The amount of people who illegally download music continues to grow. According to the LA Times, “In the U.S. alone, 20 million people still get music through peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, according to research firm MusicWatch… Comparatively, just 7.7 million Americans paid for a music subscription service last year” (Faughnder). The ratio of people who illegally download music and who pay for music is alarming. There are many costs that go into the making of music such as recording fees and producing fees. There are also many people that are involved in the production of music besides the artist. For example, there are music producers, engineers, songwriters, photographers for album artwork, employees of recording studios, and employees of record labels. There are a multitude of people involved in producing an album besides just the singer or instrumentalists. Each one of these people make their living off of the sale of music. With illegal downloading, people are harming not only the artist but also every other person involved in the production of the album. This is what these people do for a living. Like any other occupation, they should be paid for their services.

            This issue of illegally downloading music also extends to the controversy of copyright infringement. In the film Copyright Criminals, they define sampling as “using a segment of another’s musical recording as part of one’s own recording” (1:51-2:02). With the increasing amount of people illegally downloading music, it is easier for an artist to use another artist’s work without going through the proper legal methods in order to use their work. The argument is made that if everyone else can access their work for free, they should be able to use their work for their own purposes. However, the original work is the property of the original artist, and it should be their decision whether or not someone else uses their work and what the use of their work should cost. The age of illegal downloading has only encouraged people to take from an artist without monetary compensation or credit for their work.

            Many people argue that no work is truly “original” and that each work builds from work of the past. In many ways this is true. However, there must be a line drawn between drawing inspiration from past works and copying another person’s work. The first part of a remixer’s manifesto as stated in the film Rip!: A Remix Manifesto says “culture always builds on the past”. While this is a true statement, there needs to be a definition between “building” and stealing. Each artist works hard to produce their work and should be credited for the work that they create. Some may argue that this would cause an obnoxious and unnecessary amount of citing sources; however, if copyright law is more defined, it could straighten out the confusion on the differences between drawing inspiration and copying.