Ashir 1

Muhammad Ashir

Furrha Ahsan

Writing and Communication

31 March 2019

Both the music industry and the consumers benefit from the free availability of free music on the

internet. The criminalization of music piracy is therefore misguided

Piracy has existed in all forms and shapes throughout the ages evolving with time to

integrate into every type of industry and cunningly by-passing any action that may have been put

into place to prevent the multi-faceted problem from cultivating. Music piracy is arguably the most

extensive form of piracy known to the contemporary man due to its prevalence and common

presence in almost every circle of society. The popularity of music piracy can be fairly attributed

to the rapid growth in technology throughout the twentieth century, starting from the introduction

of cassettes and CD’s and gained momentum with the advent of the internet. The internet

particularly contributed to the increase in piracy because it eliminated much of the physical aspects

of exchanging CD’s and cassettes to illegally duplicate music, and greatly facilitated sharing of

media and files among its users. This rapid boom in electronic media was accompanied by a

lagging system of copyright laws, as legislatures struggled to keep up with the fast-paced

technological innovations. As a result, the spread of electronic content went unchecked for decades

and even now, there is a lack of adequate legislation regarding piracy laws and countless illegal

websites hosting pirated content thrive on the internet. Most of the copyright legislation was

formulated in the early twentieth century before the digital revolution and it has remained largely

unchanged throughout. There is also a considerable ethical subjectivity in the term “intellectual
 Ashir 2

property rights” such that it has become challenging to introduce anti-piracy and copyright

protection laws without posing any threat to creative expression and freedom of speech. Although

some might argue that antipiracy laws are important because piracy causes a loss of revenue for

the creators but their obsolete structure and inefficiency, their difficult enforcement due to the

delocalized nature of digital piracy and the complexity of ethical and legal dilemmas pertaining to

digital infringement make criminalizing music piracy counter-productive for society.

Advocates of copyright laws fail to realise the antiquity of most copyright laws around the

world. The last major revision to the copyright act of the United States was made in 1976, more

than a decade before the advent of the internet and even the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

(DMCA) of 1998 was introduced when the internet was largely composed of slow dial-up

connections and limited speeds. With tremendous increase in the scale of use of the internet and

the exponential speeds at which it currently operates, legislation controlling the use of digital

media has lagged in contrast. A report published by the OECD on piracy highlights how piracy

laws are vague and do not discriminate between tangible and digital goods. Hence, it becomes

difficult to appropriate laws that govern physical assets to content that is imperceptible and abstract

(OECD 2). The existing anti-piracy laws have even been attributed to providing asylum to digital

pirates. According to the joint comments submitted to the U.S Congress almost 400 music

associations, record labels and publishers pushed for reforms in the DMCA because they claim

that it “provides harmful “safe havens” under which many platforms either pay nothing or pay less

than market value for music” (Library of Congress 2). This shows how record labels and media

corporations have reservations about the existing laws in place and want to push for reforms in

these laws. However, as is mentioned by Paul Tassi that, “As technology continues to evolve, the

battle between pirates and copyright holders is going to escalate, and pirates are always, always
 Ashir 3

going to be one step ahead” (Tassi 1) in an article published on the Forbes’ website, it is evident

that simply updating the existing laws does not provide a solution. The reason is simple – for

digital content to be protected from piracy, it must be encrypted using strong, virtually unbreakable

encryption keys which is nearly impossible to accomplish. Any form of antipiracy encryption

mechanism is always eventually broken – it is just a matter of when and by whom. Merely

imposing stricter laws and improving legislation does not seem to have any positive effect on the

inhibition of piracy around the internet distribution and duplication of digital content is already

outlawed in most parts of the world, yet it thrives with prosperity in the underground regardless of

the laws that are passed to restrict it.

Consequently, the outdated laws also fail to recognize digital piracy using a universal legal

definition. This is a serious cause for concern, for legislative authorities, because without

consensually agreed interpretation of digital piracy, antipiracy laws are akin to a rudderless ship

in open seas. The exact characterization of the term digital piracy varies from jurisdiction to

jurisdiction. It is evident from the example of The Pirate Bay; a website that provides its users with

millions of unlicensed copyrighted materials including music files, films, games, and books.

Although the founders of the site were found guilty of encouraging piracy of content, their business

model was not found to be outside the law and as a result it still operates on a large scale to this

day because the founders argued that the site did not host any unlicensed material, but it was just

a Peer-to-peer network that allowed the users to share files. How the users chose to use their

platform not the concern of The Pirate Bay owners. The Pirate Bay also was based in multiple

locations outside Sweden, so that it could not be conveniently placed under any one jurisdiction.

It was a delocalized service that was immune to any action against it such as seizing and shutting

down its servers because of its decentralized system. Even if the main servers were taken down,
 Ashir 4

users could still use DHT and MAGNET URL to continue to host pirated content in various

locations. (Miller 17). Another very direct result of the ambiguity associated with the term digital

piracy is the fact that it becomes problematic for local clubs and bars to host local musicians who

play their versions of what maybe considered classical hits. Often, they must cancel these

performances because playing licensed music is in violation of copyright laws (Bonni and Dawdy

689). While copyright laws have been successful in catering to these rather petty violations, they

remain largely ineffective against the more formidable online pirate sites and their consumers who

are masked behind the anonymity and ambiguity that the internet provides.

Furthermore, such a widespread use of pirated music and the persistence at which piracy

sites reappear on the internet even after any form of legal action against them highlights a key

moral and ethical dilemma behind it. Such a widespread use of digitally pirated music and other

files either represents that millions of people around the globe are fundamentally morally

degenerate or that their conscience strongly objects to equating a theft with downloading a pirated

mp3 file. A paper by researches from university of Warsaw in 2013 explores the ethically dubious

nature of online piracy versus theft of tangible, physical objects. According to the paper, “Unlike

theft, online “piracy” involves no physicality, loss is low or inexistent and rarely breach of

protection occurs” (Hardy, Krawczyk and Tyrowicz 14). These three factors seem to be strongly

corelated to an individual’s judgement of whether an act constitutes theft or not. People associate

theft with a disregard for someone’s safety and a major loss of material. While online piracy of

music (and really any other content) usually does not involve these factors as well as the standalone

monetary losses to the creators are usually relatively modest, hence individuals do not establish

piracy to be as grievous a crime as physical theft. This is a fascinating point that pokes the very

heart of the dragon – what is the generally accepted moral standpoint regarding the subject of
 Ashir 5

online privacy and whether the legislature regulating online piracy is in line with what seems to

be the consensus on the morality of the issue. From this moral ambiguity around the subject of

online piracy other complications surrounding the matter really stem. Since it is not as morally

concrete as physical theft, it would be extremely difficult to build a system of coherent laws that

protect music creators against piracy. It should also be kept in mind that notwithstanding some of

the above issues, copyright laws around creative content also must make sure not to step on the

freedom of speech and artistic freedom. In fact, some artists do not hold as strong a grudge against

piracy of their content as most record labels and media houses. Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien mentioned

that, “ I have a problem when people in the industry say ‘it’s killing the industry, it’s the thing

that’s ripping us apart’,” O’Brien said in a video message for the Midem music conference. “I

don’t actually believe it is… [Pirates] might not buy an album, but they’re spending their money

buying concert tickets, a T-shirt, whatever”(qtd. in Adshead 1) .Of course, this does not mean that

every artist is as supportive of piracy as Joss, however it goes to show that even artists themselves

are not unanimously against piracy of their content as one might imagine. In fact, some of them

consider it to be beneficial to their art as it provides much sought out exposure. Hence, the

subjective morality of online piracy is one of the biggest reasons for the futility of criminalizing

music piracy.

However, given all this information one might still argue that piracy reduces the revenue

generated through sales as each illegal download is a loss to the artists and the record labels. But

sales from records and albums does not constitute the majority of their revenue streams. Instead

66% of the main revenue streams for most artists comes from live performances and tours

(Thomson and Kook 98). In addition to that, the rise in popularity of online streaming platforms

such as Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify provide an easy alternative for users as well as content
 Ashir 6

creators. These platforms can match the ease of access that the users experience on pirated sites

while simultaneously ensuring that the original content creators are duly rewarded. These

streaming services also eliminate the huge costs of distributing music. In contrast, streaming

services like Spotify, Apple Music and iTunes allow creators to distribute it to a much larger

community as mentioned in a paper submitted to the University of Dublin by Aoife Coffey in

which she sates that, “Music streaming has become the most popular method for consumers to

listen to music”(Coffey 1). Thus, it can be concluded that piracy accounts for no more than a small

fraction of revenue loss of the artists whose earnings are already typically above the average

earnings of the population that it does not, in most cases, threaten to affect their lifestyle.

Given such moral ambiguity around the subject of online piracy the fact that people always

find loopholes in laws and technology alike, that allow the persistence of piracy throughout digital

media, it is incredibly challenging to introduce universal laws that help criminalize it. Moreover,

some music artists go so far as to openly embrace the piracy of their content which supports the

argument that online piracy is not a digital analogous of physical theft. In addition, the advent of

many streaming services that allow revenue generation for artists while providing consumers with

easy access to music, and the fact that album sales are not the main source of revenue for artists,

supports the idea that criminalizing music piracy is not the answer to dealing with music piracy.
 Ashir 7

WORKS CITED

Adshead, Adam. Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien: ‘Piracy isn’t killing music’. NME.com Jan 2010.

Web. Mar 2019. www.nme.com/news/music/radiohead-341-1293197

Coffey, Aoife. The impact that music streaming services such as Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music

have had on consumers, artists and the music industry itself. Diss. University of Dublin,

2016 (DAI). Print.

Dawdy, Shannon Lee and Joe Bonni. “Towards a General Theory of Piracy”. Anthropological

Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Summer 2012), pp. 673-699. Print.

Hardy, Wojciech, Michal Krawczyk and Joanna Tyrowicz. “Why is online piracy ethically

different from theft? A vignette experiment.”. University of Warsaw, 2013. Print.

Library of Congress. Before the U.S Copyright Office In the Matter of: Section 512 Study: Notice and

Request for Public Comment. Docket No 2015-7

Miller, Jared Paul. “Why The Pirate Bay Remains At Sea While Napster 1.0 Now Rests In Davy

Jones's Locker.” Diss. Drexel University. Apr 25, 2018. Print.

OECD. “Piracy of Digital Content”. 2009 . Print

Tassi, Paul. “You Will Never Kill Piracy, and piracy Will Never Kill You”. Forbes. 3 Feb, 2012.

Web. www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/02/03/you-will-never-kill-piracy-and-piracy-will-

never-kill-you/#45ee256d7a52
 Ashir 8

Thomson, Kristen and Jean Cook. “Artist Revenue Streams: A Multi-Method Research Project

Examining Changes in Musicians’ Sources of Income”. Print