Ruben on Piracy
In “ In Defense of Piracy(Well, Some Piracy)”, Matthew Ruben states that it is alright to download mp3 in certain circumstances. He reasons firstly that the current marketing strategies of music are making people paying for albums they would not enjoy. He also reasons that between a dilemma of paying unreasonable price for a single and downloading, there is nothing ethically wrong to download than buying a whole CD just for a track. Thus, he reckons that pirating mp3 single can be a form of protest to the music industry on resisting hype. Though these reasons seem attractive, especially to the general public, Ruben has not taken into account of the devastating effects of piracy has on to the music industry and that piracy is flat, adulterated theft (Gary Locke, 2010).
Ruben acknowledges that piracy is against intellectual property rights but he contradicts his statement by saying it is okay to download popular singles from major record labels. By mentioning the latter, he is assuming that major record labels would not be greatly affected by piracy .It has been reported that the full impact of sound recording piracy on U.S. output was an overall loss of $12.501 billion (Stephen, 2007). As a major record label, it would be have a larger ratio of the market, thus the loss of revenue because of piracy is larger than the rest. Additionally, because of this loss of revenue, it leads to layoff and deprived the industry to develop new talent. Hence, he has not addressed the possible effects that downloading popular singles would lead to.
References
Gary.L (2010). Remarks at intellectual Property Enforcenment, Belomont University. Retrieved January 30,2011 from http://www.commerce.gov/news/speech/2010/08/30/remarks-intellectual-property-enforcement-belmont-university-nashville-tennes
Stephen.E.S(2007). The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the U.S. Economy. IPI policy Report
Ruben acknowledges that piracy is against intellectual property rights but he contradicts his statement by saying it is okay to download popular singles from major record labels. By mentioning the latter, he is assuming that major record labels would not be greatly affected by piracy .It has been reported that the full impact of sound recording piracy on U.S. output was an overall loss of $12.501 billion (Stephen, 2007). As a major record label, it would be have a larger ratio of the market, thus the loss of revenue because of piracy is larger than the rest. Additionally, because of this loss of revenue, it leads to layoff and deprived the industry to develop new talent. Hence, he has not addressed the possible effects that downloading popular singles would lead to.
References
Gary.L (2010). Remarks at intellectual Property Enforcenment, Belomont University. Retrieved January 30,2011 from http://www.commerce.gov/news/speech/2010/08/30/remarks-intellectual-property-enforcement-belmont-university-nashville-tennes
Stephen.E.S(2007). The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the U.S. Economy. IPI policy Report
References: Gary.L (2010). Remarks at intellectual Property Enforcenment, Belomont University. Retrieved January 30,2011 from http://www.commerce.gov/news/speech/2010/08/30/remarks-intellectual-property-enforcement-belmont-university-nashville-tennes Stephen.E.S(2007). The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the U.S. Economy. IPI policy Report #188