The Crackdown on Pirated Music

There is a whole other side to the destined decline of CD sales.  It is obvious that iTunes is without a doubt hindering the record business and the profit isn’t as rewarding as it once was.  The threat at this point is not so much legal downloading services on the internet, such as iTunes but it is the availability of illegal downloading services on that net that poses the biggest problem.

Today, piracy is the leading reason as to why physical albums have not been selling as well as they once did.  Not only can you now share stolen mp3 files for free, but the programs used for piracy for example Napster, Lime Wire, Morpheus, and Kazaa can all be downloaded free of charge.  Free mp3 downloading services such as Napster and Lime Wire are popular because of the rising popularity of illegal file sharing and the thousands of people that participate in copyright infringement.  They do this by taking already copyrighted material and encoding it into mp3 format on their system. After the downloader has encoded the mp3 it becomes a personal file on the user’s computer, therefore they are able to share and exchange these mp3s with other users that have downloaded the program. 

About 1 billion songs are downloaded illegally per month, and there doesn’t seem to be a near end in sight.  The idea of piracy is that avid music listeners have taken control of their own means of downloading and sharing mp3 files, many of which have a similar mind set, why purchase a song when I can download it for free?  It is tempting for younger consumers because they want to obtain as much music as it takes to fill an 80 gigabyte iPod.  
 
Record companies are by far the most affected by illegal downloading, but even iTunes suffers from piracy. How?  IPod has not exactly worked out its kinks and as secure as the system may seem.  Apple has tried, but has not been 100% effective in keeping mp3 files shared through other programs out of iTunes. An example of this kind of piracy is the infamous Napster service, which is to be further explained later on.  Because Apple sells other products including phones and computer systems its top seller is their mp3 player.

There is no doubt that Apple makes money off of iTunes downloads; even if piracy occurs they are not missing out on lost revenue.  Although users are downloading music from illegal programs, and uploading then to their iPods, Apple is hardly affected by this as their mp3 continues to sell. Those who participate in piracy may get their music for free, but what people fail to realize is that most of them have already been swept up into the iPod fad, they’ve already bought the expensive mp3 player to play their stolen songs, and that’s all Apple really needs. 

By selling albums in the iTunes music store the consumer is forced to use iTunes and the Apple brand, encouraging the use of the legal service for however long they keep their mp3 player. Unlike Apple, major record labels are the ones that suffer as a direct result of piracy; it is this dilemma that is most harmful to the business and many artists today. 

Copyright infringement is illegal, and those who participate in piracy are subject to lawsuits and other consequences if caught associated with the mp3 file sharing, after all it is the primary reason for diminishing record industry sales.

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