WAM Radio Script
Welcome to WAM radio, your source for heated debates about hot topics! I’m your host Jake Klein, here with my guest Amber O’Leary. Today’s debate is about music piracy, is it good or bad? Amber is an avid music listener with strong opinions about music piracy. Call in at 800-555-5555 to tell us what you think. Well looks like we have our first caller. Stephen, tell us what you have to say!
Stephen: Hi Jake. I am strongly opposed to the morals of music piracy. You may not have to worry about getting caught but that is not a reason not to partake in piracy. First and foremost, piracy is theft. Most of us would never steal from a mom and pop shop down the street, even if it was easy to do. This is no different. Even though it is easy to do, and there is no face on the person you are stealing from, and there is often little to no chance of getting caught, it is still stealing and morally wrong.
Amber: Whose morals are we talking about? Everybody has different morals, so how can you say that this is “morally wrong” in general?
Stephen: I’ll tell you exactly how it’s morally wrong. People are losing money, and getting laid off because people are not paying them for their music that they worked hard to create. According to the Recording Industry Association of America website:
” Global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings, and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues, $291 million in personal income tax and $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes.”
Piracy causes monetary losses and layoffs in an already strained economy, and real people are getting hurt even though you wouldn’t know it from “harmlessly” downloading music.
Amber: According to these statistics, music industry losses alone due to music piracy is a sum greater than the Gross Domestic Products of many of the world’s developing countries. Arguments such as this are hard to swallow when the supposed “data” to back them up is furnished by the plaintiff party.
Jake: We have a caller coming in with another argument of how piracy is bad. Amanda, tell us what’s on your mind.
Amanda: Hi Jake. I’m an aspiring musician and I am very upset that music is being so often pirated. It’s making it harder for artists to break into the industry because it’s tough to make a career when your money is being stolen right away from you. It’s hurting the arts as a whole because musicians like me are unable to get their careers started.
Amber:
• However, many people discover a band because they first downloaded one of their songs illegally online. Those fans then support them by going to their shows and purchasing merchandise. Te record label is the one making the money off of albums. If anything, free downloads are a good way for bands to break into the industry.
• Artists like Lady Gaga say that they are ok with fans downloading music. She acknowledges that they make the real money by touring. As much as $40 million can be made from a 2 year touring contract, and that is the low end. She says downloading is good for her career, even if it’s unauthorized downloads because it advertises her music.
• So in many ways, it’s like free advertising. How many times have you left a concert and other bands were standing outside the door putting free sample disks in your hands? Free music gets people to listen to them. Downloading helps unheard of bands gain an audience. It’s less likely that anyone is going to buy your music before they know if you’re good or not, especially in today’s tough economy.
Jake:
-Let’s take another caller.
Stephen:
-Why would you ever download music illegally, when you can just buy it from iTunes or Amazon?
-Purchasing music can be expensive. It may only be $1-2 per song, but that quickly adds up. There would be no way for most people to justify spending the amount of money it would actually cost if they had paid $1-2 for every song in their music libraries. And if their not getting it, their not listening to it, and not promoting the band by telling their friends about it.
Amber:
- Amazon and iTunes do have extensive libraries of music and offer a simplistic service that is user friendly, but the material that you are downloading is limited.
-Apple and Amazon both protect the music that users download from their sites. Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is the software that makes it so music you buy from the iTunes Music Store can’t play on any other player other than the iPod, such as a Zune or other mp3 player. In an effort to keep people from sharing legally purchased music, DRM actually goes much farther than copyright law dictates, denying paying customers the fair use of the music they buy. You should be able to do what you want with an album once you’ve paid for it; like a CD or a record, you now own it for life.
-Free downloads can be the same quality as bought downloads, plain and simple. If you know how to use the internet, you can find a quality mp3 without having to search very hard.
-Last year, Google launched free music downloading in China. Internet users in China simply have to type in the name of an artist and song they are looking for in Google and they are able to download it for free. Google and the record labels then split the advertising revenue. If this is legal in China, then how could it be morally wrong in the US or anywhere else? Would it then be morally wrong for users in China to access the part of the internet that they are barred from reaching because of the absurd censorship laws?
Jake:
-Thanks Amber that’s a good point. So, who are the ones governing Internet downloading? The Recording Industry Association of America, or the RIAA, is a trust that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors. The RIAA says, they “create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 85% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States.”
-The RIAA was formed in 1952, and promises to uphold and protect intellectual property rights worldwide and the First Amendment rights of artists. The RIAA also monitors and reviews relevant laws, regulations and policies. As of January 5th, 2009 the RIAA ended their search for illegally downloaded material. So, what does that mean for the future of online downloading?
Amber:
I hate the RIAA. The organization is completely bogus. On December 21, 2006, the RIAA filed a lawsuit against Russian owned and operated website AllOfMP3.com in the amount of $1.65 trillion($1,650,000,000,000). This number was derived from multiplying 11 million songs with statutory damages of $150,000 per song. The Moscow court ruled in favor of AllOfMP3.com.
