Illegal Downloading Benefits All

We live in a world where a person's taste in music is a part of their personality. It separates and identifies cultures all over the world. It's a universal language that can represent human emotion. But just like everything else in this world, it comes with a price. Fortunately for music lovers, with the invention of a small thing called the internet and peer-to-peer (or p2p) networking, anyone who can work a computer can get music for free. It just so happens to be illegal to download from a p2p network—or so it seems.

For anyone who doesn't know what a p2p network is, it's a computer program or website that allows users to share all kinds of different files across the internet. Some of the most popular programs to date are Limewire, Frostwire, Utorrent and the Pirate Bay. One of original and most famous p2p networks is Napster. Napster was originally allowing users to download almost any music file for free, but it was violating copyright laws. It all went downhill for Napster when Metallica's demo song "I Disappear" started showing up on radios all over America. The source of all of the song downloads traced back to Napster.

Unlike Metallica, the band Radiohead found with their album "Kid A" that although album sales did take a small hit, their concert sales more than made up for the decline. According to Time Labs online, a study done in the United Kingdom proves that music artists make more money on concerts and overall sales with the help of illegal downloads. This is because performers make a majority of their money off of concerts and a small percent on album sales. The record companies and labels that sell and create the music artists are the ones who make the majority of their money off of album sales and are also the ones who promote anti-music piracy ads. Granted, while the record companies do make a large profit on concerts, the artists are taking more of the profit percentage.

Now the question is: If it benefits all of the people who make the music and promote the music, why is it illegal? What it seems to be is that everyone is getting a slice of the pie. The music artist and the music labels get the large quantity of money they desire as well as free advertising, and the music lovers get free music. The truth is, it's not as illegal as it seems. In fact, 95 percent of music downloads from the internet are illegal downloads and only less than five people in the world have been arrested for illegal downloading as opposed to the millions of people that download illegally. The Federal Communications Commission gave up on trying arresting everyone because of the number of people who downloading illegally. There are not enough handcuffs or jail space in the world to put everyone away.     

Here at Quinnipiac University we cannot access these p2p servers because they are blocked by the school internet server. Basically, they are disallowing us from sharing files over the internet with friends, which would be the same as a Quinnipiac security guard writing me up for letting my friend borrow and download my new Justin Bieber CD. P2P is sharing over the internet. The last time I checked, sharing is caring.