Is Downloading Music Stealing Essay

The rampant internet usage has also paved way to easy access to information including easy access to musics and videos. The internet has been a fast way to acquire new movies and musics without spending anything. Numerous websites have been put up for the purpose of sharing this information. However, coming with the “easy access” to information are numerous ethical issues specifically on the question as to how ethical and legal are the sharing of these files on the internet. If these activities, how are they handled and what specific laws cover these? Mostly, questions on jurisdictions also arise every now and then since the coverage of these websites is worldwide.
Let’s focus on music downloading? My opinion is that the downloading itself is not an illegal act, however, downloading copyrighted materials without permission is what is not right. We know that most of the time, music uploaded online are copyrighted materials from the singer or the producers of that song. Since most artist use music as their bread and butter, naturally, these musicians want to retain their rights to this music because one way of getting money form their music is through their buyers of their copyrighted materials. Once these are copyrighted, they are already governed by the copyright laws. When these copyrighted materials are downloaded either intentionally or not, then it is already a violation of the provisions of the copyright law making the act stealing. However, there are instances when these proprietors or artists make their music available online but these usually comes with permissions thus cannot be considered as stealing.
Controlling piracy and stealing of copyrighted materials is very hard to do. Now, should the owners of the copyright just go with the trend and make these available on the internet for free? It may be good for record companies to go with the technological trend of uploading and giving everything for free from the internet, but what will happen to them? How would they protect their rights and how would they earn from it if the records are made available for free at their sites. Only a few people today lack access to the internet, thus once they know that there is an available copy online, then no one would go to the record bars anymore, so artists will not earn from their records anymore.