“To pirate or not to pirate,” flashes in the mind of almost every music listener when they hear a song that interests them. They might think to themselves, “I have to have this song.” But what are they willing to do to obtain it? Would they do something illegal? Music piracy is becoming a major issue in the music industry. Major companies are blaming big money losses on peer-to-peer sharing networks where people share and download music from each other. The music industry doesn’t really look into the reason why people choose to download music, and because of this they have no intention to change the way they distribute music. There are many factors that come into play when you look into why people choose to get their music from P2P sites rather than pay for it. Some of the factors are the cost of a CD/the value of the CD, the perception of little risk in doing it, and the person’s ethical view.
People really don’t feel like paying a dollar plus tax for a song on iTunes or $12 for a CD. To a college kid or a teenager this is very relevant. In his article “Alternate Distribution Strategies for Digital Music”, Author G. Prem Premkumar claims, “Surveys of consumers, especially college students and teenagers, have found that CDs are perceived as expensive” (Premkumar 90). We don’t have money in general; paying $14,000 a year for school puts us in enough debt already. Why add to this debt by paying money to listen to some music? There is also another issue in buying CDs other than the overall price of the CD itself. The issue when buying a CD is deciding whether it is worth the money for the songs that you are getting from it. In his article, Premkumar states, “Another reason for this perception may be that consumers find only two to three songs of value on a CD” (Premkumar 90). This is very true to any music buyer. Is a CD really worth $12 if you only want a few of the songs on it? No it isn’t, you aren’t getting your money’s worth if you only want a couple of the songs. The music industry must see these issues and fix them instead of waiting around for P2P to die or else the music industry might see its death.
Another reason why people download their music illegally is because the perception of low risk because the music industry can’t possibly catch every person that chooses to download their music. The legal actions taken by the industry to deter piracy are under a lot of debate whether they are working or not. In their article “Estimating the Willingness to Pay for Digital Music”, authors Chiang and Assane state, “Yoon (2002) showed that enforcement creates a private cost to consumers that deters piracy, and Stolpe (2000) argued that enforcement can be effective if firms can afford such measures”(Chiang/Assane 513). The problem with taking legal action against peer-to-peer networks is that if they take one to court and it gets shut down, a few more spring up in its place, causing a never ending situation. In regards to the quote, companies have nowhere near enough money to take legal actions against all the people that illegally download and share their music. And because of that, people don’t really see a risk in pirating music using peer-to-peer networks. Just because one pirate gets sued doesn’t mean that the whole population of peer to peer users will stop downloading their music.
The last example of why people illegally download music is because of their ethics. These people don’t think that they are hurting anyone 
when they download music, that the big music corporations have enough money and they will keep making money even if people download. But the truth is, every time they download they hurt the artist because they are not getting the money they deserve for their work. In their article “The Impact of Illegal Peer-to-Peer File Sharing on the Media Industry”, authors Goel, Miesing, and Chandra claim, “Many do not realize that in illegally downloading media files, they also prevent artists and technicians from getting fair compensation for their work and ultimately inhibit the creation of the artistic content” (Goel/Miesing/Chandra 20). That quote is saying that people that say they are getting back at the big media corporations are actually hurting the artists that they like to listen to, and are subsequently deterring them from profits to make new works. Another quote about this situation was also brought up in the previous article. Authors Goel, Miesing, and Chandra state, “They are paid an upfront fee for recording an album, and additional amounts (royalties and sales) are paid only after the recording company has recovered its costs” (Goel/Miesing/Chandra 10). That quote explains how artists get paid for their albums. The company that produces the music takes in profits from the album until their fees for producing is paid for, and then the artist can collect royalties for the album. When a person downloads the album, no profit is collected for the producing company, thus the artist doesn’t get paid either. That means that when people download the artist doesn’t get any closer to getting paid for their work, which many downloaders don’t see.
It is hard to tell what the future of the music industry will be. There are many reasons that people download music and some reasons are good, while some are bad. The music industry must adapt to the new forms of consumers, the digital savvy generation of music listeners. They must realize the reasons that people download music, including; the cost of a CD/the value of the CD , the perception of little risk in doing it, and the person’s ethical view on piracy. They have to consider these reasons and create new business models to compensate for loses and deter piracy in their industry. People don’t download to intentionally hurt their favorite artists and the companies; they download because it seems to have little risk and is way more efficient to do than buying the album.
About the Author
My name is Dan Chihak, I am a freshman biology major at Winona State University. I was interested in our groups topic about peer-to-peer sharing because I participate in the illegal act of downloading music. Since I am involved with P2P sharing, I have not always thought about its effects on the music industry. After researching the topic I have gained a better understanding on the effects of P2P sharing on the industry. I learned that the music industry is slowly dying and that they have no intention of changing the way they distribute music. I also learned alot about why people download and some of the proposed solutions and business models that the music industry should use if it wants to stay alive. Lastly I learned that the music industry is the one that needs to switch to a digital approach of distrubution, and that P2P networks will never go away.
The Day the Music Died 