What are my thoughts on the buying and selling of music? There are a lot of people who have a lot of different views on this topic. Buying music is probably on the more controversial end of this question.
Because of the advancements in technology, it has now become extremely easy to access music without buying it. Before technology, the only way to get a bands music was by purchasing their music. The issue of downloading music off of the Internet for free is obviously a very controversial one. Downloading music for free from the Internet, for obvious monetary reasons, has become a very popular thing to do in today's society. Although it may be convenient, selling albums is the way that artists support themselves. So by getting these downloads for free off of the Internet, you are cheating the artist out of compensation that they deserve. There is no denying (even by people who do it) that downloading music off of the Internet for free is stealing. I know (hearing from a friend) that a lot of college campuses are cracking down on illegal music downloading. Sites such as Limewire, if found on a computer, could get you fines ranging from ten dollars to hundreds of dollars depending on how much you have downloaded. The advantage to these sites however, is that people are more likely to download more music. In this, they may discover an artist that they wouldn't have otherwise. They might also start listening to the artist more, show it to friends and increase the artists fan base. This in turn could sell more tickets to shows or even sell merchandise. Exposure and growing popularity is the advantage of free downloads.
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I agree, artists today, although they are not getting their pay from the selling of CDs, they are deffinitely getting exposure from the illegal music downloading. I also feel, however, that it really cheats out the recording studios and producers more so than the artists themselves. As we discussed in class, the artists only get a small cut from the record sales. Although I understand it is illegal to download music, I see it also as a good thing just because of the exposure artists get, which in turn brings more people to their shows, where they'd get a larger cut of the money.
ReplyDeleteI, too, feel like it's a good thing for the artist, but a bad thing for the record company. I think they really need to cut down the prices of CD's to get more sales. Since the artist doesn't get much off CD sales anyway, concerts and t-shirts make up for what they would receive from CD's.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel as though I'm cheating the artist out of anything when I download music from Limewire. While it is true that I'm stealing from the producers, I don't think they need the money anyways. Also a lot of what I download is live stuff that can't really be bought on a CD. I do try to support my favorite bands by buying shirts and going to shows since that's where they make most of their money.
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