This paper argues that peer-to-peer music sharing constitutes criminal digital piracy under established U.S. law, including the Piracy and Counterfeiting Amendments Act and the No Electronic Theft Act. Drawing on research in criminology, business ethics, and risk management, the paper documents the scale of the problem — including billions of illegally shared song tracks and billions of dollars in annual industry losses — and examines why piracy persists despite its illegality. The paper also considers partial solutions, such as low-cost legal download services like iTunes, while acknowledging that illegal file-sharing continues to cause substantial harm to recording artists and the music industry as a whole.
Although the practice is becoming increasingly commonplace, peer-to-peer music sharing is a serious criminal act that is legally defined as digital piracy (Wolfe and Higgins 33). According to Wolfe and Higgins, "Digital piracy is an emerging computer-related crime in the twenty-first century. Digital piracy is the unauthorized copying of digital goods [including] music for any reason, other than to back-up, without permission from and compensation to the copyright holder" (33). It is reasonable to suggest that the majority of individuals who participate in peer-to-peer music sharing practices are acutely aware of its criminality but continue to do so regardless because they are legion.
While precise figures are not available, current estimates indicate that more than a third (37%) of all music compact discs (CDs) marketed worldwide have been pirated, causing a $4.5 billion loss to the music industry (Wolfe and Higgins 34). Moreover, in 2005 alone, approximately 20 billion individual song tracks were illegally shared without payment to the legitimate copyright holders (Wolfe and Higgins 34). Consequently, the enormous economic effect of music piracy has been characterized as "the greatest threat facing the music industry today" (Chiou, Huang, and Lee 161).
Indeed, unit shipments of recorded music have fallen by one-third to one-half in recent years due to illegal file-sharing practices (Wade 11). While it is conceivable that other factors have contributed to these drastic declines in music sales, it is clear that music piracy accounts for a significant percentage of lost sales. As Wade points out, "Obviously, many factors can contribute to a downturn in sales, but none have done so as much as online music piracy" (12).
"Covers laws against piracy and why it continues"
"Identifies victims and examines legal download alternatives"
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