The Ethical Issue Of Downloading Music Illegally
Most of us who grew up in the internet age would have probably been involved in downloading music off the internet. Software such as LimeWire, Kaazaa, AudioGalaxy and Napster are all familiar to us as we would have used either one of these programs to get our download. Lately however technology has been evolving and improving, hence the cost of downloading music has fallen. We do not need to buy expensive Cds anymore.
Take for example iTunes, the online music serivce that is provided by Apple. Anyone who owns an ipod would have to use iTunes to upload music files to their ipods. iTunes charges around 99 cents per song to download and they do have a wide selection of music available. Another example is Yahoo Music Unlimited. Launched just recently, YML allows users to download songs at 79 cents per song. And for $5 a month, it allows you to share and save upto a 1 million songs.
These new services have definately decreased the cost of downloading music....but the question is will this help curb people from continuing to still download illegal music off the net?
The way I see it is totally different. See over here in North America, CDs are really cheap. You can get the latest Coldplay cd at around 15 dollars. Whereas in asian countries, CDs are still expensive. The same CD is around 35-40 malaysian dollars; income capacity and purchasing power are also different in both parts of the world. 15 dollars isnt really expensive at all to most North Americans, but to the asians, 40 bucks on a cd is pricey. Thus is no surprise that piracy work is so common in southeast asia whereas over here, not many people actually engage in active piracy activities; hence I guess these online services would work better in asian countries. But then again we all know the asian mentality, everyone wants everything free...if they can get it. On the contary I think maybe it's time illegal music downloading stops or at least be significantly reduced.
Well what do you think?
Take for example iTunes, the online music serivce that is provided by Apple. Anyone who owns an ipod would have to use iTunes to upload music files to their ipods. iTunes charges around 99 cents per song to download and they do have a wide selection of music available. Another example is Yahoo Music Unlimited. Launched just recently, YML allows users to download songs at 79 cents per song. And for $5 a month, it allows you to share and save upto a 1 million songs.
These new services have definately decreased the cost of downloading music....but the question is will this help curb people from continuing to still download illegal music off the net?
The way I see it is totally different. See over here in North America, CDs are really cheap. You can get the latest Coldplay cd at around 15 dollars. Whereas in asian countries, CDs are still expensive. The same CD is around 35-40 malaysian dollars; income capacity and purchasing power are also different in both parts of the world. 15 dollars isnt really expensive at all to most North Americans, but to the asians, 40 bucks on a cd is pricey. Thus is no surprise that piracy work is so common in southeast asia whereas over here, not many people actually engage in active piracy activities; hence I guess these online services would work better in asian countries. But then again we all know the asian mentality, everyone wants everything free...if they can get it. On the contary I think maybe it's time illegal music downloading stops or at least be significantly reduced.
Well what do you think?
posted by d4g at 1:51 p.m.
1 Comments:
Are the cds in Malaysia overcharged? Like you said earlier, if we compare the purchasing power of a Malaysian and the price of a cd, it's definitely much more expensive than the cd prices in other countries like the States. But if the prices of original cds are lower in Malaysia, say RM15 per cd, most people will definitely go for originals instead of downloading or buying pirated copies.
I dont understand the law of economics, so I dont know where the real problem lies.. Does it lie on the fact that we have low purchasing power (meaning our economic growth is not good?) or is it true that the music industries are ripping our money?
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