Music Piracy

The UK Top 40 is designed to be an accurate account of the most popular songs purchased each week. It is a tool that allows the general public to discover new music, and is a point of focus for many artists, from which to measure their success. It ensures that these artists, and inevitably their record labels, make a large amount of money. This therefore suggests the charts are run by major labels such as Sony and Universal, not necessarily the consumers themselves.

Since the development of illegal download technology, a large proportion of people choose to obtain their music from sources such as file sharing websites. This is a fairly recent development, but surely not a surprising one. It has hugely affected single sales, the younger generation generally being blamed for the atrocity of piracy, but were the technology available 20 or 30 years ago, would the same thing happen? Most likely, yes. It can't be ignored that music prices are at an all time high, both in record sales, and other factors such as tickets and merchandise. However, we know, the record labels know, and the artists themselves know, that free music is far more appealing for most people, than a £12 album. It can be argued that music piracy is plain theft, which theoretically it is, but the ability to listen to a variety of music, entirely legally, is a significantly large expense. An expense that a lot of people can't honestly afford. Shouldn't music be available to anyone who wants it, rather than those who are able to chuck pounds at it?

The accessibility of illegal downloads, does have consequences, other than legality issues. The first, is that the divide between those who pay for music, and those who don't, could easily be ruining the legitimacy of the Top 40 chart. Certain music, attracts certain people. Those who have a tendency to bend the rules slightly in life, may listen to music that reflects their personality. It's a likely possibility that they obtain this music illegally. Piracy downloads contribute to 0% of the charts. Purchased music is the only music being promoted as the most popular songs of each week. This means their are a vast amount of music people are listening to, that is completely unaccounted for. Isn't this seemingly prehistoric in comparison to current technology? Or is it simply that musicians, and their money-making labels have no interest in acknowledging, therefore partly accepting piracy?

I would be a huge hypocrite were I to now lecture about the moral implications of music piracy. As someone who listens to music frequently (understatement), and as a student, the cost of buying all the music I listen to, is vast and simply not realistic. However, I buy as much as I am able to, especially lesser known artists. The second implication of music piracy, is the effect it has on the artists. Why should they struggle, because of the ignorant attitude of others? There is a benefit for the consumer too. Live music is a great part of the music industry, but not possible without a sufficient fund. You could even think of legal music purchases as investing in your favourite artists. You fund their tours, which you later benefit from. You make sure they're able to continue to create music. Piracy may make music accessible in the short term, but is it slowly destroying the music industry? If this continues, will it be detrimental in the long term?