Illegal Downloads & The Music Industry

When the radio was invented, people thought it would kill the music industry. Of course it didn't, it helped it dramatically, but people seem to think the internet will do the same.

Record companies and industry officials are doing their very best to scare everyone into purchasing their music legally, yet illegal downloads are still excessively abundant.

What is the industry doing wrong? Can illegal downloads ever be stopped?
The music industry is failing at stopping illegal downloads, dismally. Despite their best lawyers writing threatening letters, and occasionally even prosecuting, for every person they take down, a thousand take their place. It's too big and too easy to replicate for the industry to stop, yet they seem to persist in thinking it can.

And it's a self-destructive pattern. People download music illegally, the companies put up the price, which in turn discourages even more people to pay for the music legally, and the problem goes on.

People are losing their jobs, companies are taking less risks on new artists making the music industry harder to break into.

So what can we do? What can the record companies do?

Personally, I think the essence of the problem is in a sense of ownership, or more specifically, the lack of it.

I'll explain this with movies, as it's essentially the same.

Have you ever seen those ridiculous announcements, on your legally brought DVD, saying 'You wouldn't steal a film/car/', 'Downloading films is ILLEGAL', 'You kill a kitten every time you do' etc.

But it's right, I wouldn't steal a film, I wouldn't steal a car. Yet if I download one illegally, I don't feel like I've stolen anything.

I don't feel like I've taken dinner off the directors plate, or lost the sound guy his job. I feel like I've downloaded a video file. I can't hold it, it doesn't take up any physical space, and if I throw my laptop out the window into a lake, it's gone, and gone forever. 

Yet if I steal a DVD from a shop, I feel bad, I do feel like I'm hurting the film industry, it does take up physical space, and if I do throw my laptop in a lake, it's still there, taking up space in my room and my conscience.

What the music industry does not seem to get, is that if I can't hold it, or at least have significant enough proof it 'exists', I don't feel like I own it. The feeling you get from buying an album in a shop is significantly better than buying it online.

You get to hold it, you get album artwork, artwork on the CD, a cover leaflet often with extra information and blurb about it, and a stylised track listing on the back. If I have it in my room, people can see I've brought it, and can enjoy also enjoy these things.

But if I buy it online, I get none of this, I just get the bare bones music, that I will lose if I throw my laptop into a lake.

Whilst there has been some feeble attempts to tackle this, such as digital artwork and leaflets, it's not enough. Companies need to find a way of making paying for their digital media more attractive.


It's an insult how much the digital music distributors charge for music; the only thing they pay is the record company and the bandwidth charges to let you download the music, and that's it. They no longer have to pay the many production costs associated with the physical CD.

Digital music prices need to go down and right down, for the industry to compete with the price of 'free'. Since they're selling you mp3s through the web, they have significantly less production costs compared to the physical counterpart, and therefore these savings should be passed on.

This is what not only the music industry needs to tackle, but the media industry as a whole. 'I don't feel like I own it' should be written in clear view in every meeting intended to tackle internet piracy. Because if I don't feel like I own it, I don't feel like I've stolen it.

Until the industry understands this, internet piracy will continue to thrive.