Music Piracy: The Struggle of the Recording Industry

Have you every taken a bunch of CDs from a local music store? Have you ever kept CD from a library? Have you ever stolen money from anybody? Now let me ask you this: Have you ever burned a CD from a friend? Have you ever downloaded a song without paying for it? Have you ever ripped a CD from the library onto your computer? Believe it or not, these questions all deal with one major theme: music piracy. As a whole, the global music industry has gone from $40 billion to $32 billion in a period of 2 years: 2000 to 2002. "Shipments of recorded music in the US have fallen by an astounding 26% from 1.15 billion units in 1999 to 860 million units in 2002" (Banwol). Piracy of music and other forms of media have become a popular outlet for people all over the world, but it has a negative impact on the users, the providers and the artists.

Music really has been in existence for thousands of years now. It truly is amazing to see how far music has evolved from the earliest known stages of music. There are six different, classified periods of music: the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque Age, the Classical Period, the Romantic Era, and the 20^th Century Era (Lowe). The first period, the Middle Ages, was mainly marked by Christianity. A majority of the compositions were obviously hymnals. The period has no marked period of time, but it was mentioned to have started around 500 AD. Most of the music consisted of monophonic voicing, which is a single melody. It was not until 900 AD that advocates of music began to experiment with different tones singing the same rhythm, a process called harmonization. Although harmonies were integrated, monophonic compositions still were used more for the next 400 years ("Music, classical").

The second period, the Renaissance, was said to have lasted from the mid 1400s to about 1600. During this period of time, music really began to develop as a whole, as it began to focus more on the technicality of the instruments rather than vocals. Although vocals and instruments were still widely used together, instruments were beginning to become a whole separate style. The beginning of the period was more dominated by the Netherlands; however from the middle 1500s to the end of the period, the Italians became more dominant. During this period of music, it was widely accepted in Elizabethan England ("Music, classical").

The third period, the Baroque Age, was to have lasted from 1600 to about 1750. One major landmark that was accomplished during this period was the creation of opera. Johannes Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, both natives of Germany, were revolutionary to this particular period. Bach was more devoted to creating compositions devoted to church; however, he was very versatile in his styles. He created compositions for harpsichord, choirs, orchestras, and various other instruments as well. Handel was primarily the man who composed the infamous, the Hallelujah Chorus. He was considered a master of composing polyphonic, multi-voiced, compositions ("Music, classical").

The fourth period, the Classical Age, took place in the late 18^th century. The period was marked by Austrian composers, Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as well as, Ludwig van Beethoven. Haydn was a man who excelled in sonata form, as well as a classical string quartet forms. Mozart, who was a friend of Haydn, excelled even as a child. He had major compositions in string quartets, symphonies, sonatas and concertos. Beethoven was a man who had accomplished nine widely acclaimed compositions throughout all periods of music. He was notable in his music due to the fact that he was deaf while making some of his compositions("Music, classical").

The fifth period, the Romantic Period, took place more in the 19^th century. It was a period that was marked by large amounts of paintings, and literature. This period marked more emotion in the music, and did not follow earlier traditional compositions. A lot of the compositions resembled sounds of the environment. It was music, that actually painted a picture for the listener. Popular German composers of this period included: Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, and Robert Schumann. French composers such as: Hector Berlioz, Frederic Chopin, and Franz Liszt also were a part of this period. The Romantic period also was marked by an amount of compositions from Russian nationalists, as well as some of the greatest operas of all the periods ("Music, classical").

The sixth and final classified period of music was the 20^th century era. This time period rebelled against the emotional, Romantic Era, and opted for a more subtle style of music. A new style of music, jazz was beginning to develop. During the 1920s, Aaron Copland became a prime figure in the world of jazz. Jazz was different than any other type of composition because of its use of improvisation. Moving on into the late 1940s, experiments of electronic music occurred. By 1955, the first music synthesizer was produced in Princeton, New Jersey. The addition of the synthesizer, and sequencing would forever aid composers in their master pieces ("Music, classical"). From the 1960s on, many different styles of music were branched out: rock, rap, R&B, blues, pop, techno, and many other styles. As technological advancements in music occurred, advancements in music piracy also developed.

Technology really started to boom in audio amplification by the late 19^th century. In 1857, Leon Scott de Martinville invented phonautograph. By 1877, the first phonographs were created by Thomas Alva Edison. A decade later, in 1887, Emile Berliner invented the gramophone disc record ("Audio recording"). Many developments continued to arise as more recorded sound companies continued to bloom. In 1914, there were 18 known recorded sound companies. Four years later, in 1918, this number rose all the way to 166 companies. By 1948, Columbia provided America with the first 12-inch vinyls. Advancing to 1982, the more common compact discs began to circulate among the music industry. In the year 1999, the music industry took another revolution with the creation of a "peer to peer" service, known as Napster, was created ("Facing the Music").

Before even the music industry began to establish itself as a major part of society, copyright laws had been established centuries before the "Digital Age" even arrived. The British actually passed the first copyright law in 1709. By 1741 and 1790, both Denmark and the US established copyright laws. The basis for copyright laws in the US lies in the hands of the constitution. In the constitution, a national copyright system is established in Article I, Section 8 ("Copyright"). What exactly are copyrights? Copyrights are defined as a group of exclusive rights that offer protection of different forms of media (Bainwol). This can include protection of music, drama, literature, an idea, or many other forms of creative ideas. If one decides to use an idea or creation from someone else, he or she must pay royalty. Royalty is a fee one pays to the copyright owner in order to perform, or have access to the copyrighted material ("Copyright"). By 1976, the U.S. Congress continued to make revisions of current copyright laws. Ironically, after continually making more stringent attempts of enforcing copyright laws, things only seemed to get worse. During the same time, 1976, Universal Studios and Walt Disney Productions sued the Sony Corporation for bringing about the home recorder, only to find that 8 years later it was legal to record entertainment on a recorder. This is only the beginning of a continuing struggle over music piracy ("Copyright"). The RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, plays a big role in copyright issues. It is a "trade group representing the sound recording industry" ("Facing the Music"). They are involved with, in manufacturing or distributing, 90% of all legitimate sound recordings in the United States (Banwol).

Since 1999, the digital revolution really began to take over the United States. By 2008, it is prospected that 1/3 of all music sales in the US will be over the internet (Feuilherade). Music started to become more accessible, and people really began to take advantage of the situation. It all started with Napster beginning as the first peer to peer service. It was said that "87% of music that was traded on Napster was copyrighted" ("Facing..."). For short, they call it "P2P". A peer to peer software basically can speak for itself by the name. In a P2P software, a community of avid listeners share their music with other frequent listeners. P2P services began to take over the music industry from that point on. Different providers like Kazaa, Morpheus, and Bear Share were eventually added as soon as Napster began to go under. Kazaa, after Napster, seemed to become the next biggest music provider. As of July 2002, the P2P service had registered over 100 million users (Banwol). The government really began to crack down on these programs as Kazaa, Morpheus, and Bear Share all went under, or changed their motives in response to copyright values. Currently, Limewire is the most active P2P service, and unfortunately, many people still use this service to this day.

None of the file sharing would have been possible without the new idea of "ripping" compact discs. This process we call ripping is defined by loading a compact disc into computer and storing the music files onto the computer. This all was revolutionized in 1987, as a bunch of German engineers created a program that could compress computer sound files to a lot smaller of a sound file, which eventually was developed into a format called MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, also known as MP3 ("Music and the Internet"). Before this new idea was developed, piracy of music was not nearly as accessible until people started ripping music onto computers. Some people worked hard to record music off of the radio, and that seemed to be the only way that a person could officially have an artist's music, without paying for it. Yet taping music often leaves the listener with disgust, as the quality is much worse than actually buying the music. However, with this recent idea of ripping music, one can still keep the same, good quality, without paying a dime for the music.

Also, burning compact discs became popular among average listeners. Up until recently, buying computers that provide an individual with compact disc burning possibilities were mainly limited to the upper-class. Here in the year 2007, almost all computers contain some sort of device that allows a user to burn music, or other files, onto a compact disc. This makes it much more feasible to burn compact discs from fellow classmates, friends, siblings, or even parents. The problem is not only with whom the music industry is losing to, but also at what rate the music industry is losing its edge. Compact disc burners are becoming a lot faster, and they are also of better quality. Along with the music ripping, compact disc burners enable a pirate of music to enjoy music the same quality as the original compact disc.

One may argue that the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 justifies the right to burn compact discs at anytime. In the act, it declares that people are allowed to make "digital or analog copies of music for noncommercial purposes" ("Music and the Internet"). This may seem true on the outside; however, the basis of the act was to enable friends and family to share recorded material without being punished for copyright infringement. The act does declare that it applies to digital recordings, although it was specified for the use of copying cassettes. However, at the same time, downloading files illegally still violates copyright laws. Now one can see where the dilemma is between the two sides.

Music piracy is not only a problem in America. It is also a huge part of European, Asian, and Middle-eastern countries. Pakistan is known as one of the top ten countries of piracy in the whole world. Over 13 million pirate copies were exported each month to at least 46 different countries. Pakistan had produced for than 230 million copies of both CDs and DVDs. Only 25 million copies of these products are sold within the country. This means that the other 205 million copies of the CDs and DVDs are sold in various places throughout the world (Khan). Piracy even lies in the arms of Great Britain, while they continue to fight off the same problem that America still struggles with. Piracy in the country had climbed over 36% in 2001, and still continued to rise ("Music piracy...").

Sure, compact discs are still very expensive nowadays. However, paying $12 to $15 on an album is much better than paying thousands of dollars per song. Infringement copyrighted music can be a range anywhere from $750 to $150,000 per song ("Sued for a Song"). Picture having thousands of songs downloaded from a P2P service. Hypothetically, there could have been 1,256 songs downloaded from an individual. Penalties for all 1,256 songs could be up to $188,400,000. 1,256 songs on a computer could equal to about 100 albums. 100 albums at about an average of $14 a piece equals about $1400, over a prolonged period of time. Which sounds better, $1400 or $188,400,000? Hypothetically speaking, one could buy around 13,457,142 compact discs for $188,400,000. Compared to 100 discs, for $188,400,000, a music lover could buy 13,457,042 more compact discs for the same exact price.

"Although piracy exists there are many legal music providers out there" (Bainwol). There are great improvements that have been added to benefit both the industry and the listener. Streaming audio is the first addition in which has greatly ameliorated conditions of the recording industry. "Streaming" music is defined as where a viewer or listener can watch or hear a movie or song as the file loads. Rhapsody, Liquid Audio, and Live 365 are all different examples of providers (Loads 134). All of these companies provide the same idea of streaming music; however, Live 365 is more radio based. In Live 365, anyone can submit their own music to be streamed for an audience to hear. This makes it great for local or starving musicians who are trying to get their name out.

Another great improvement to the music industry is the idea of allowing a listener to buy or lease music. In buying music, one can pay for a song on the Internet for an average price of 99 cents. iTunes is the most popular example of this, although Napster and Musicmatch both provide the same service. In leasing music, a listener can pay a monthly fee to have access to a certain amount of songs. This is a big part of what Napster does currently, but Musicmatch also provides the same service as well. Napster also allows the listener to put the files that are leased onto a mp3 player. Technology now allows us to use this license music legally, without paying every dime of every song. Consider this similar to leasing a car. Sure, in the long run of things, it might be a lot of money invested, however, it all depends on how big of a music fan a listener is. If one is only an every other day listener, the leasing of music option should not be considered. However, if a listener is a music addict, the process of leasing music is actually a great idea.

It is easy to see that the piracy of music is still very easy to achieve in the modern society. Although great measures, such as streaming, selling, and leasing digital music, have been a huge part of fighting piracy, piracy still exists as a huge part of society. The problem still is a huge problem, not only in America, but across the whole globe. With easy access to ripping and burning, it is almost inevitable to stop people from committing the crime of music piracy. Piracy is not only stealing money from the recording industry, but it is also a big and often very expensive crime. However, it only takes one person to help save a starving musician out there. Every fair download that goes to an artist is one more chance. Piracy is clearly killing the music industry, one download at a time.

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