Music for nothing and your tracks for free.

Tittle: Music for nothing and your tracks for free.
Source: www.articlecity.com
Date of Publication: July 02, 2007.
Author: Morgan Hamilton.

Vocabulary:

-Spin: noun, informal, a way of presenting information or a situation in a particular way, especially one that makes you or your ideas seen good.
-Subtle: adjective, often approving, not very noticeable or obvious.
-Spurious: adjective, based on false ideas or ways of thinking. False although seeming to be geniune.
-Scrape the botton of the barrel: idiom, disapproving, to have to use whatever things or people you can get because there is not much choice available.
-Resort: phrasal verb, "resort to something", to make use of something, especially something bad, as a mean of achieving something, often becasue there is no other posible situation.
-Sue: verb, to make a claim against somebody in a court of law about something that they have said or done to harm you.
-Stamp out: phrasal verb, to get rid of something that is bad, unpleasant or dangerous, especially by using force or a lot of effort.

Main Ideas:

-The record industry claims that "illegal downloading" seriuosly threatens the development of music and artists.
-This industry have not published any factual information to support its claim.
-There is information that shows that downloading spends 27% more on music than on legal activity in download sites.
-The UK software house, Remlap Software, suggest that "illegal downloaders" are anything but the thieves the record industry labels them as.
-The term "illegal download" would be defined by most people as an activity which is outlawed under Criminal Law.
-But the Oxford Dictionary merely states that "illegal" is "contrary to the law".
-The difference between the public perception of the definition and the officially recognized version may only be subtle, but it is powerful enough for the record industry to exploit.
-In making people believe that illegal downloading of music is theft, the record industry re-enforces the public perception that such activity is in contrary to criminal law, with all the serious consequences that such an offence implies.
-The truth of the matter is that there is no criminal offence in either the EU or USA of downloading music without paying for it.
-All best, the record industry could claim that "illegal downloading" are a violation of Civil Law but even this would be spurious.
-In desperation, the record industry has scraped the botton of the barrel, and now resorts to suing its own customers.
-But to date, they have not been able to prosecute one case of "illegal downloading".
-In every case, they have sued on the allegation that the defendat has distributed music in violation of copyright.
-The basis of Peer-to Peer network is that users share their music collecton with the rest of the network, and it is that act which is the offence, not what they have downloaded.
-In the effort to force the world to only use Pay-for-music download sites, the record industry has already persuade a number of universities to turn-off Peer-to Peer traffic.
-In respond to this situation, Remlap Software considered that there are probably more mp3 files sitting on the web serves, than there are in all the Peer-to Peer networks put together.
- Clickster, the first legal mp3 downloader, gives acces to over a million individual tracks, all found on Internet web servers and available for download.
-With Clickster clearly navigating around the lastest attemps of the record industry to stamp out what they call "illegal download", the future remains bright.

Personal Reaction:

Two main problems are clearly detected when discussing illegal downloading of music. The first one is the fact that the record industry is the main agent who uploads music on the Interent, generally for prommotion. And in the end, they complain for a situation that they created themselves. And the second one, is the fact of the difficulty that arises when the law has to take into account issues related to technology.
Technology moves fowards quicker than Law. Day by day, new problems appear which are not even mentioned in the Civil Codes of most countries. Not until this types of cases are analyzed by courts of law and not until people involved with the launch of new laws decide on explicit regulations to cope with music piracy, can we determine to what extend is music downloading illegal or not.
In my personal opinion there is no doubt that such activity afects the development of artists and the music industry, for its main consequence is a huge falling of the sells in what refers to albums. But at the same time million of artist grew and continue growing in their careers becasue of the massive advertising that the Internet offers to them.
So, it will take a long time untill all people involved in the uploading and downloading of music come to a final decision in what regards the control of such activities. 'Till then, this will continue to be a trivial topic of discussion and will continue working as it does, just to answer to the personal interest of everyone related to the downloading af music...things will change, when we think on the general interest of the community and on what is better for all of us, no if we keep on thinking in an individual way.