Music Piracy

Ok, admit it. Pretty much every single one of us has downloaded a song or two from the Internet illegally. And we probably all had the same thought in our heads when we did it. Oh, it’s only one song. It won’t hurt. Well, the truth is, it does hurt. A lot.

Let’s put things into perspective, shall we? So, there was a total of 281,421,906 citizens in the United States as of the 2000 census. Of that, an estimated 27.4% are between the ages of 0 and 19. If we take that from the total to make things a little easier, and that leaves us with a total of 204,312,304 citizens ages 20 and over. If we assume that each one of these people is capable of, and I know that’s pretty unrealistic, downloading one song, and they do, That’s over 200,000,000 songs downloaded. And with most songs costing about a dollar each, we now have a total of $200,000,000 stolen from the music industry that could have been put to good use. That one song seems like a much bigger deal now, doesn’t it? It should. I know that in reality, these numbers are no where near close to being accurate, but it’s the closest one can manage.

But what can the world do about music and software pirates? The answer is simple. Nothing. No matter what actions the government takes on the issue, they will be, one, violating the pirate’s rights if they completely revoke Internet access, and two, the pirates will simply find a new way to download or make a new website if the government were to shut them down.

That is why I propose a crazy solution. Make all music a download and make it absolutely free. Insanity, right? Let me explain my reasoning. The best, or shall I say, most critically acclaimed artists, are usually those who preform, sing, and make music for one reason. They love it. They love writing songs, they love preforming them, they love recording them. To those few artists, the millions of dollars they make is a perk. If all music is free, they will hopefully stay and preform and make music, simply because they enjoy it, not because they are getting paid millions of dollars. Hell, just drastically decrease the price of music. That way, people are still getting paid, but at the same time, it allows for more leniency with piracy.

Who knows? It might just work.

Advertisement