Say no to piracy

Have you ever had the temptation to download music off the internet illegally without even paying a single cent? Recently, in Minnesota in America, there was a woman who had been brought to court for downloading 24 free songs off the internet illegally, and was fined a whooping 1.8 million dollars. She was shocked at the fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents. Now this leads us to the fundamental question – is it justified to punish someone so harshly just for a few illegal downloads off the internet? No matter how absurd it may sound, I believe that it is correct to implement harsh and strict measures to curb piracy (illegal downloading). Despite the arguments that it is not worth it to buy a music CD, piracy infringes copyright laws and results in the many adverse effects on industry, and thus it should be prevented.
There are definitely arguments supporting piracy. One of which is that music CDs are not worth buying, mainly because of it high price and having only a few good songs. “The public thinks albums have too much filler”, containing too many average songs and having only a few good songs. Furthermore, the high cost of the CD only sets to exemplify the problem. Since there are other alternatives such as to download the good songs for free on the internet, it is definitely not worthwhile to waste the money on an expensive CD just for the few good songs. Also, the majority of the population who buy music CDs are the young people. They would not have too much money on their hands when studying or starting off their careers and the only possible way to obtain music is to download it freely off the internet. This suggests that downloading free music off the internet is a more pragmatic option to get music rather than to waste money to buy the music CD which is not worth its cost, and thus piracy should be allowed.
However, getting music tracks are worth the money, and the lack of financial means does not justify the other option of downloading free music off the internet, which is equal to stealing music. In addition, CD prices have been coming down in the recent years, including a large average drop of 3.1% in prices in 2004, making CDs more accessible and affordable for music lovers. Hence, we can see that music lovers should buy the music CDs and not resort to underhand means to get their music free.
I will now talk about the arguments against the piracy. Firstly, illegal downloading of music infringes copyright law. Sharing and downloading of music files is just like stealing a CD from a store, since you are getting it at a much lower price you are supposed to get it for. If such piracy is rampant, the education of the children will be affected and they would have the mentality that music is meant to be cheap or free and that downloading music illegally for free is a perfectly alright thing to do. Furthermore, intellectual property law such as copyrights and patents have existed for hundreds of years, and it already recorded in the constitutions of many countries, like in the US constitution. Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, once said that "there looms the onrush of a collision between copyright rooted in the Constitution...and the rowdy, assertive babble of those who are determined to shrink and possibly exile the concept of copyright in order to grab creative material without paying for it." All the above evidence sets to show that piracy strongly infringes copyright laws and thus should not be allowed at all.
In addition, there is also the factor that piracy largely affects the industry. This is very evident as the recording industry is having declining sales, and one of the contributing factors to this decrease is the increasing trend of people downloading music files off the internet. “Each sale by a pirate represents a lost legitimate sale, thereby depriving not only the record company of profits, but also the artist, producer, songwriter, publisher, retailer, … and the list goes on”, highlighting the diverse impact illegal downloading of music has on many different groups of people. Furthermore, “the industry loses about $4.2 billion to piracy worldwide”, which equates to a loss of a few million dollars per day due to illegal downloading. The entire economy is losing out, including the artists, industry workers and record stores, because of the sharp decrease in demand for music. At the end, creativity will ultimately suffer, because no one would be willing to take the risk of pursuing a music career, since it is very difficult to earn profits and sustain a living out of writing music. Hence, we see the serious negative impact of piracy that would finally affect everybody in the records industry, including the artists themselves, and thus it is pertinent to go all out to prevent piracy. In fact, it will also affect music lovers, because there will be no more music if there are less music artists around, which may become a reality if demand for music CDs decrease and a career in music is thus not feasible.
In conclusion, despite some arguments for piracy, it is definitely important to note that piracy strongly infringes copyright laws and affects the records industry very adversely, eventually suppressing creativity by music artists. Hence, I feel that it is important to by all means curb and prevent piracy from taking place. If you do not agree, think about the possible future without any music.