Downloading Music

I wrote this a while ago, but I still think it's relative in today's environment!

What is the big deal about downloading music from the Internet? Why are people up in arms because other people down load their favorite songs? Why is it “illegal” to download music? Now before you write in saying it is stealing let me give you two examples on why it is NOT stealing!

First example – libraries; they buy a book and hundreds of people can read that book free of charge, but the author just gets paid for the purchase of it once! So why is that NOT stealing? Libraries have been around for probably 100 years and it’s not stealing when you go in with your free (except in Alberta) library card and check out a book and read it.

Second example which I believe is even a better example, why aren’t newspapers and magazines up in arms about people reading other peoples papers/magazines? You don’t hear a paper saying, please don’t show this newspaper to anyone else, please make them buy their own copy. In fact for advertising sake they do polls on the average amount of people who look at each bought newspaper. So if you have ever read someone else’s newspaper then you have no right at all to say downloading music is stealing, because it’s the exact same thing!

Remember when you were young and tapes were the way to listen to music, everyone, taped songs from one tape to another. Everyone had mix tapes, why, because it wasn’t stealing; it was listening to other people’s music for your own enjoyment. That is the exact same thing as downloading music off the Internet except you have more than one or two friends you can borrow from.

Another reason people download music is that the price of a CD is way too expensive when there are only 1 or 2 good songs on the CD and the rest is just filler. Why buy the entire CD. Someone has bought it and you are borrowing that song to add to your mix CD for your personal enjoyment, just like in the 70’s and 80’s with the mix tapes. Once a person buys a CD it’s only his or her choice what they do with that CD. That person can keep it for their own use, they can give it away, throw it in the garbage or if they choose to do so, they can share it.

Just like a person who buys a newspaper if they want to share it, they can and the law should not make them a criminal because of it. Artists are not losing money because of this; maybe record companies might be losing a few dollars but not all that much. People will buy the CD if it’s a good CD, but if there are only one or two good songs on it, it’s a waste of money. The artist gets paid before the record is even produced so that will be the same no matter what. So just like the library and newspaper, borrowing music from the Internet for personal use is not stealing and should not be illegal. Will someone please wake up and the law back on the track.

That's my Point of View

Darren