Illegally Downloading Music

Illegally downloading music has become more and more popular over the past years, especially over youths. In the 15 – 24 age group, 34% admitted to illegally sharing music over the internet. On the other hand, research shows that 10% of Europeans are willing to pay to download tracks. Research in Sweden showed that 31% were willing to buy their tracks. There has been a recent crackdown on people illegally downloading/sharing music. Hundreds of people in America have been fined thousands of dollars and 23 people have been sued in the UK for a total of £50,000. Music industries are fed up of people illegally downloading and sharing music as no money goes to the artists who recorded the music.

Jammie Thomas, Minnesota was fined $220,000 (£108,000) by six record companies for offering to share 24 songs over the internet.
Over the past years, she has shared a total of 1,702 songs over the internet via an illegal downloading program called Kazaa. She illegally downloaded songs and then offered them online via her Kazaa file sharing account.

A 12 year old girl, in New York, was also sued by major record companies for illegally downloading songs through Kazaa. She was among hundreds of people sued across America.
She thought that it was okay to download the music as her mother paid a $29.99 service charge to Kazaa.

People who are sued under the federal copyright law could be forced to pay up to $150,000 per song.

However, it is stated in Kazaa’s licence agreement, that you must agree not to “transmit, access or communicate any data that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party.”

Millions of people are illegally downloading music every day but are not being caught. It is illegal to download music without permission from the record label.

Internationally, in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain and Italy have also started to take action over P2P Sharing. In Italy, at least 75 people have been taken to court. A survey in Spain revealed that 13.1% admitted to downloading free music, a massive rise from the previously counted 3.8%. However, only 1.5% of the Spanish said that they had purchased a pirate CD or cassette, a downfall from the 4.1% a year ago.

By Furat Aziz, 14