Music Piracy and the New Musician

Today’s click-and-download technology presents a greaterthreat to the music recording industry than all other past music-deliverytechnologies combined.

Music piracy exists in 3 different planes:

• Illegally mass-manufactured pirate music CDs
• Illegal copies of legitimately purchased music CDs
• Illegally downloaded digital copies of recorded music

A recent research study on the economic impact of musicpiracy (Institute for Policy Innovation,August 2007) paints a grim picture. The impact of music piracy to the U.S.economy is estimated at U.S. $12.5 billion annually. It is estimated that 71,060jobs are lost or at risk due to the economic impact of piracy and the lostgrowth opportunities account for 26,860 jobs that would have otherwise been createdin the recording industry. Even the U.S.government is affected by piracy with an estimated loss of $422 million in taxrevenues from lost personal and corporate income due to piracy.

Of course, these figures are based upon the assumption thatsales of recorded music on CD would have held constant, or increased, from yearto year. The truth is, however, that CD sales are on the decline as MP3 playersand other digital technology make the need for music on physical mediaobsolete.

In addition to falling CD sales, half of America’sindependent record stores closed between 2003 and 2005. (NY Post). One of the largest international chains of recorded musicsellers, Tower Records, closed itsdoors forever on December 22, 2006.

Want to see how prevalent music piracy really is? Here’s a that shows the number of illegal music files downloaded around theworld every second.

When the average person thinks of music piracy, he or sheusually thinks of unauthorized sharing of downloaded or recorded music betweensmall groups of friends. And while those numbers do contribute to the musicindustry’s losses, the biggest losses occur from the sale of pirated music thatis burned onto CD-R disks by the thousands in small commercial laboratories byprofessional music pirates.

The costs of music piracy are staggering not only for thehigh profile superstars but for the new musicians as well. It is important for everymusician and band member to understand the nature of music piracy and learn howto combat this problem. Know your rights, and learn about the technology thatexists that can protect you and your intellectual property (music) from piracy.