Blog 5

As a college student, I am aware of how difficult it is to obtain all the music you wish to listent to due to financial restrictions. Music has become expensive, but its just like anything else worth owning. Its an investment, like clothing, books or a painting. The reason for cost is logical- the artists producing the product should be compensated for their work since music is their means of living.

As for the comparison of the radio to downloading music, I view it as unequal since music being played on the radio is beyond the listener’s control, while downloading a song is permanently located in your music files, creating full control of usage. I believe downloading music illegally from any artist is unethcial since it is stealing from the artist.

From an ethical standpoint, it doesn’t make a difference whether the music is produced by an independent artist or major label, money is still not being paid to the artist. Although people are quick to say major labels do not need any money, those artists worked hard to become successful and should be paid tribute.

Obviously stealing a C.D. from a record store is the wrong thing to do since stealing of any kind is illegal. If it were allowed, there would be no point to having a price tag on the album.If you’re downloading a song to “try it out,” then there is no point in saying you will buy the full length album later, in most cases that doesn’t happen. Sites like youtube allow for free listening where you can decide whether the song is worth the cost. Then if you really like it, just purchase the CD or share with a friend.I think copying a CD from a friend is okay though, since that friend most likely had to buy the music. Itunes allows for five different uses per song, which makes it legal to share music with friends. However, since I do not currently use LimeWire to download music, I do not participate in file sharing. While you are not the one to download that file, you are sharing it to hundreds of people are promoting the stealing of music from the artist since it is sharing the file to a mass amount of people. I view creating mix CDs for friends as fine, since it is legal to do. If the music you have purchased is from Itunes, the sharer is only allowed 5 uses of the song, creating a limit to the number of CDs made. However, selling CDs produced by another musician is illegal. The music is there work and you should not profit off of something someone else created. Its not hard to burn a CD, but the work involved in creating a song generally is.

When it comes to the downloading of music, I believe it is better to purchase the music from itunes or a record store. Artists should be paid for their work and downloading music from the internet is ultimately stealing from them. Since music is an abstract form of ownership, people create exscuses for reasons stealing music is acceptable, but in my opinion it is the same as stealing the CD from the store. Although the CD is a tangible form of music, file sharing yields the same results as the content of the album.