With the ease that users can download free music and share files through the internet and other technologies, online music piracy has become a major concern around the world. Even after the government shut down some of the websites such as Napster and LimeWire, many more were created. This makes it really hard to track and stop online music piracy and copyright infringement. Knowing that you could listen to music for free, people are more likely to download music from these sites rather than pay about $15 - $20 for a single CD.
According to RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), online music piracy causes $12.5 billion in economic losses every year. I agree that online music privacy negatively affects well known recording artists and big music companies, especially in terms of their bottom line. However, it benefits new musicians by giving them a chance to put their name out there so that people are more familiar with their music. In order to combat this issue of online privacy, RIAA are using anti-piracy efforts such as educational programs (especially directed to high school and college students), working with law enforcement, and creating legal methods to listen music. Their goal is to control piracy on the internet and they hope that the increased number of lawsuits will discourage people to download music illegally. They plan to accomplish this by educating people about the legal ways to listen to music online through download and subscription services, internet radio webcasting, and legitimate peer-to-peer (P2P) services.
But can online piracy really be stopped? People around the world are so used to downloading music and sharing files illegally through websites. And even if the government shuts down these websites, many more are created in its place. So this becomes really hard for the government to keep up with technology.
Link: RIAA. “Piracy: online and on the street.” http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php
