Comments on: Music Piracy vs Music Industry

By: Joseph Anderson

Joseph Anderson — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:57:13 +0000

With regards to music piracy and from an ethical standpoint, I believe an artist has every right to be angry and seek legal action when their recordings are unwillingly sold for profit or bootlegged by a shady record label or download site. It’s the intellectual property of the artist, who typically writes and composes their own songs. Not to mention, the artist has developed their own way of performing a song, which is documented within the recording.

In 2011, a judge ruled in favor of singer Paul Collins, whose rock group The Beat lost substantial revenue from a series of unauthorized bootleg recordings released by an underground record label. The recordings were unknowingly engineered during The Beat’s tours with The Police, Eddie Money and The Cure. Although the label argued that the recordings were tracked and mixed by an independent investor during the 1970s and 1980s, Collins was unaware of these dealings and was awarded an unspecified amount of damages. Collins was granted permission to digitally re-master and officially release the live recordings. In response to backlash and negative publicity from fans accusing him of being greedy, Collins attempted to make a public statement about piracy. In 2012, Collins made the recordings available to everyone as free MP3 download tracks to fans worldwide.

Some fans might argue that Metallica was selfish to target Napster for illegally offering their music as MP3s. In all fairness, not everyone victimized by piracy are platinum-selling, wealthy artists in the caliber of Metallica. Paul Collins had just as much right to take legal action, but he turned the negative situation into a positive one by publicly releasing the pirated material as free downloads to his fans. Case in point, not all rock stars are selfish or “only in it for the money.” Musicians have a right to be paid for their intellectual property. People who support music piracy only think about themselves. If a musician isn’t being paid for their work, how are they supposed to continue recording, writing, performing and touring? Musicians aren’t slaves and if they aren’t making enough money to function, then they might choose a different career path that doesn’t involve making music.

By: Alida Hanson

Alida Hanson — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:41:54 +0000

Thank you so much for sharing your slideshow. It’s a special interest of mine because I was raised in a family that worked (note the past tense) in the music industry for a collective total of 70 years. I think about the topic alot and am always grateful when someone else does, too.

I’m not surprised by the reactions of your students–at least they didn’t get angry, which happened when we discussed this topic in a graduate level LIS class last year after some students suggested that illegal downloading was, well, illegal.

I look at the topic through the eyes of a copyright holder–the artist or composer. I also consider how broadband/internet and hardware costs have eaten up the dollars that traditionally went to copyright holders and record labels.

By: Fran Bullington

Fran Bullington — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 21:30:31 +0000

I’m sure your presentation was fantastic – the slidedeck supports that belief. The old “you can lead a horse to water” saying applies here. It is not your fault if the students continue to illegally download and/or share music. Now if/when they do so, they are willingly choosing to break the law.

I fear that many of today’s youth have witnessed too many “I have never had sex with that woman” type of adult examples to believe that wrongdoing = punishment.

By: Cathy Nelson

Cathy Nelson — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:46:53 +0000

They were indifferent before, except to say how simple it is to get the music one likes today (and how diverse their tastes are, much wider than when I was young.) These kids talked about the Billboards and how music is ranked, reminding me that ranking was based on sales, then pointing out that Billboards are wrong on many levels since the youth of today DO NOT purchase music–they get it freely from sharing. I really had not considered that at all. So essentially music is taking the road of the long tail just as much as learning is. Now THAT was a surprising discovery with this class, and it is one that indicates I learned something today as well.

By: Diane Cordell

Diane Cordell — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 01:42:27 +0000

Great lesson, Cathy! How did student responses shape up before and after the slideshow?
During my last two years as a teacher/librarian, I taught a high school Current Events class (my choice). I found that the best lesson plans were put together the day before, or even the day of, scheduled classes. It’s the perfect subject for someone in our profession to teach – after all, locating and sharing information is a large part of what we do!