Music has become an important aspect of our lives. We listen to the music we like to brighten our moods when we are feeling down. However, as the technology and the Internet progress goes on, the issue of piracy is becoming increasingly prevalent. Piracy does not only affect the music industry, it also affects the people that produce music and share their art with the world.
From one standpoint, the music industry is badly affected by piracy. The problem is exacerbated in the countries where the law pertaining to piracy is not good enough and people capitalize on that. If people knew they could get fined or even imprisoned for pirating content, they would decide against it. Musical producers and recording labels lose money because someone made their songs available for free and those who want to bypass paying for the music will relish in it. Undoubtedly, there are loyal fans that will pay for the music they enjoy, even though they can download it for free. However, these are the minority.
On the other hand, illegal downloading might not have a profound impact on artists. This is especially true if the artist itself is well-known around the globe, like many pop singer are. Sure, it might decrease their overall income a bit. Renowned artists are usually rich that they do not even care if their music get pirated as they are very likely to have other sources of income.
I have my own opinion on this issue. No one really downloads music anymore, now that we have services like Spotify or YouTube music to stream our favorite songs. And we have to pay a subscription to use the abovementioned services. Even so, we don’t own what we pay money for, when our subscription ends, we can’t listen to the stuff we have in those services. Since buying is not owning anymore, then piracy is not stealing.