A New Age of Music Piracy
Andrew Vaccarezza
Dr. Keith Bohm
Music 129, section 2
12 July 2007
A New Age of Music Piracy
A thief can be defined in many different ways. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language states a thief is one whom commits theft. So one might ask, what exactly is theft? Theft is defined as ‘the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language).” Now most people who participate in music piracy do not consider themselves thieves. The definition of a theft is flawed in many ways. Most of the time people do not contain on factor of being a thief, this factor is depriving the rightful owner of the property stolen. Although theft is being committed, one’s intent is not to deprive any artist of their music. It is hard for people who participate in music piracy to make the connection to theft and their actions due to the item not being tangible. Most think of theft involving tangible items although it includes copyrighted and patented items. Music artist are all protected by copyrights and patents, and therefore music piracy is a crime. The music industry is loosing billions of dollars each year due to this new epidemic while it is continuing to prove to be a growing problem. According to the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) in 2003 the record industry was loosing about $4.5 billion dollars a year, worldwide, due to music piracy (Hart-Davis). The American Federation of Artists claims that on-line music piracy has caused some record store sales to drop by twenty percent and about twenty one billion illegal downloads occur every month (AFM). Many experts believe that music piracy is currently the number one threat to the music industry. RIAA sources claim 278 million people, worldwide, use peer to peer networks such as Kazaa and Grokster to illegally trade music files. RIAA and AFM are fiercely fighting music piracy and
Dr. Keith Bohm
Music 129, section 2
12 July 2007
A New Age of Music Piracy
A thief can be defined in many different ways. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language states a thief is one whom commits theft. So one might ask, what exactly is theft? Theft is defined as ‘the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language).” Now most people who participate in music piracy do not consider themselves thieves. The definition of a theft is flawed in many ways. Most of the time people do not contain on factor of being a thief, this factor is depriving the rightful owner of the property stolen. Although theft is being committed, one’s intent is not to deprive any artist of their music. It is hard for people who participate in music piracy to make the connection to theft and their actions due to the item not being tangible. Most think of theft involving tangible items although it includes copyrighted and patented items. Music artist are all protected by copyrights and patents, and therefore music piracy is a crime. The music industry is loosing billions of dollars each year due to this new epidemic while it is continuing to prove to be a growing problem. According to the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) in 2003 the record industry was loosing about $4.5 billion dollars a year, worldwide, due to music piracy (Hart-Davis). The American Federation of Artists claims that on-line music piracy has caused some record store sales to drop by twenty percent and about twenty one billion illegal downloads occur every month (AFM). Many experts believe that music piracy is currently the number one threat to the music industry. RIAA sources claim 278 million people, worldwide, use peer to peer networks such as Kazaa and Grokster to illegally trade music files. RIAA and AFM are fiercely fighting music piracy and
Bibliography: Feuilherade, Peter . "Online piracy 'devastates ' music." BBC Monitoring 1(2004): 1. Hart-Davis, Guy. Internet Piracy Exposed. 1. New York: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2004. Hinduja, Sameer. Music Piracy and Crime Theory . 1. Jefferson, NC: LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC., 2005. Fetscherin, Marc, and Sabrina Zaugg, "Music Piracy on Peer-to-Peer Networks," eee, pp. 431-440, 2004 IEEE International Conference on e-Technology, e-Commerce and e-Service (EEE '04), 2004. McLEOD, KEMBREW . "Share the Music." The New York Times Company 1(2004): 2. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 4th ed. 2000 Ziemann, George