Essay - Music file sharing

The debates of music file sharing
In recent years file sharing has become an increasingly popular trend for people of all ages to download songs of their favourite artists for free. This essay gives details on how file sharing started off as a peer to peer program and how it was created. It explains the positive and negatives of downloading free music and how music copyright is actually a serious crime and what current penalties are in place.

In the beginning, file sharing programs were Peer-to-Peer, so when users ‘shared files’ they were directly sharing the file between each other, breaking copyright, and in many cases, ending in lawsuits. Now, a new type of file sharing system has been developed where users download a ‘torrent’ from any given torrent sharing website, example www.torrentspy.com, this ‘torrent’ acts as a link to however many users are sharing the file in question, downloading bytes from various people, which makes it a bit of a copyright loophole, as the user does not technically download the file from a person, but tiny amounts from a number of people.

“Napster, created by a 19-year-old college dropout, Shawn Fanning, was constructed around a simple guiding premise: to facilitate the sharing of computer files though the internet” (Hoorebeek 2003:163). This program was shut down in May 2002 after a powerful legal battle in the United States with well known band Metallica and rap artist Dr Dre (CNN:2001). After the lawsuit, Shawn fanning said ‘I look forward to gaining metallica’s support and respect as we work to develop napster into a tool that can be responsive to both the artists needs to communicate their art and to the desires or music lovers throughout the world.” While industry lawyers are still left questioning the copyright of musical works. Napster was so successful because of its simplicity. It started off with an mp3 on your machine, and your machine was connected to the internet. When connected, the Napster server knew what files were on your computer, and knew what files were on thousands of other people’s machines who were also with Napster. All the user had to do was search for a particular song he/she wanted to listen to and the Napster server did the rest of the work. It found that song on someone else’s computer and started downloading a copy of that material to their computer (Chudnov 2001).

The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) claims that downloading ‘free’ music from the internet has affected record sales resulting in a negative impact on musicians and people who invest in the music. They go on to say that the downloading of music without permission doesn’t fairly reward those create, develop and record the music (ARIA 2005). “This will also have an effect on a whole group of people from the retail store employee to those who depend upon music for their income” (ARIA 2005: 1). Computer security is also an issue when downloading music files. Using current file sharing programs puts your computer at risk of viruses or spreading spy ware. This can have a devastating effect on your computer; viruses can interfere with files, while spy ware can track your online activities. Spy ware is common in places that concern file sharing, they can be with the network or packaged with file sharing clients (Get Net Wise 2003). Music downloading resulting in unwanted spy ware has also been linked into being extremely damaging in large corporations. Employees who download music and share music with others are unknowingly downloading spy ware into large company information systems. “Millions of computers can be linked at any one time, providing an unprotected gateway through which confidential corporate information can be accessed” (Mcafee 2006:1).

Although ARIA has claimed that file sharing has had a negative impact on the music industry and is the cause of declining record sales (ARIA, 2005), studies have proven otherwise. A study by Harvard Business School and University of North Carolina have proven that file sharing only has a slight negative impact, if not at all, on the sale of music. “In the file sharing community, it is a common practice to browse the files of other users and to discuss music in file server chat rooms. This learning may promote new sales" (Oberholzer & Strumpf, 2004). They also suggest that file sharing is normally used for getting a sample of music which can encourage the sale of the CD. According to the study, it was found most people only download a few songs per album and more than 50 per cent of the songs from the album were never downloaded. This shows that most people download music as a sample (Murugiah, 2006). It has also been discovered that there is an interesting correlation between the price of CD’s and the decrease of record sales. “Every year after 1999 that it increased the price per CD, less people bought CD’s” (Murugiah, 2006:56). The internet also allows musicians to reach audiences they otherwise could not (Lanzendorfer, 2004). It can also promote independent artists instead of corporate artists. “Musicians such as Jason Mraz claim that half of fans that pay him in concert got to know about him via illegal downloading” (Murugiah, 2006:57). Another musician who recently used file sharing to their advantage is the singer/songwriter Missy Higgins. On the 26th of April she revealed a password in the Daily Telegraph which allowed users to download her unreleased single ‘Warm Whispers’ from the internet. Although this song was only up and running for a week, it is a useful tool for fans to get a sample of some later music (The Daily Telegraph, 2007).

Copyright is a very serious crime and has always been dealt with in a harsh manner. The Australian copyright council provides the following laws on the copyright someone else’s material. “For some indictable offences, an individual who is guilty may be fined up to $93,500 or imprisoned for up to 5 years, or both. For importation of material that infringes copyright, fines of up to $71,500 and/or imprisonment for 5 years may be imposed on an individual. Penalties can be much higher where the infringement involves the digitisation of copyright material from hardcopy (for example, from cassette to CD or from video to DVD). An individual who is found guilty of a summary offence may be fined up to $13,200 or imprisoned for up to 2 years or both. A corporation may be fined up to 5 times the amount of a maximum fine” (Australian Copyright Council, 2007:1).

Although copyright breach is a serious offence, and should be punished as it robs the owner of profit, constituting it as theft, there are positives to file sharing. These positives include providing the average internet user with samples of music from artists that they may later intend to purchase. Missy Higgins has recently used file sharing to her advantage by providing an unreleased song onto a webpage that people could download. File sharing has become an increasingly popular trend due to the distribution of freeware software. The only problem with this is that when you leave the power to share such files in the hands of just any individual, with no one to moderate the content, chances are it will end up with copyrighted material being shared, simply because people like to get things for free, many not realising how serious a crime they are actually committing.





References

Australian Copyright Council (2007) http://www.copyright.org.au (accessed 25 April 2007)

Australian Recording Industry Association (2005) http://www.aria.com.au/ (accessed 25 April 2007)

Chudnov, D (2001) 'Opinion paper: docster- instant document delivery' Interlending and document supply 29: 23-27

CNN Money (2001) http://money.cnn.com/2001/07/12/news/napster/ (accessed 26 April 2007).

Get Net Wise (2003) http://www.getnetwise.org/ (accessed 26 April 2007)

Hoorebeek, Mark, V (2003) 'Napster clones turn their attention to academic e-books' New library world 104: 142-148

Lanzendorfer, L (2004) ' Internet Issues' Emerald journal article 55: 106-112

Mcafee Antivirus Software (2007) www.mcafee.com/us/local_content/white_papers/threat_center/wp_virtual_criminol ogy_report_2007 (accessed 25 April 2007)

Murugiah, Seravanen (2006) Griffith university school of arts :The debate of music downloading. Griffith university thesis.

Oberholzer, J and Strumpf, C (2004) ' Peer to peer discussion paper' Emerald journal article 31: 55-59

The Daily Telegraph (2007) http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,21584396- 5001026,00.html (accessed 26 April 2007)