Double Page Spread- Music Piracy

By Tyrell Willock

Piracy is a big issue in our society. With new media in our society and quick, sufficient access of the web, the majority of us turn to the internet, enabling us to download music illegally.

There are different reasons why people download music illegally. One of these reasons is that downloading online is free and less time consuming. Obviously, in this day and age, we wouldn’t find someone walk into a CD store and buy an album worth £12.99, when we are now able to download the same album, for free! People often spend (on average) around £120 on 3 video games but wouldn’t waste a penny on an album that they can download. A lot of people like the word ‘free’. If everything in the world were free, the world would break apart; we would become less motivated and lazier. Unfortunately, we do not live in a world like this, although we do have some lazy people in our society. But let’s not jump off topic.

I may be ashamed to say this, but out of the 8 million people who downloaded Ed Sheeran’s album ‘X’, I was one of them. This isn’t because I didn’t have enough money to buy his album, but because it wasn’t time consuming and I wanted his album on the go. According to a BBC Radio 1 interview, Ed Sheeran said that he still sells gig tickets for “relatively more than he does albums”.  We are told that on average, he sells his albums for £8 and his gig tickets for £18. From my research, I have found that as an artist, it is important not to just rely on album sales, but to also sell merchandises or do festivals and gigs. This will create much profit for the artist, as more money is coming in for someone who does more things around music. It seems like the norm to just download music. We don’t realise this, but we download content every single day and we use these contents for our needs.

In my opinion, I agree that piracy is destroying the music industry but at the same time, it isn’t. According to documentary on YouTube ‘Face the Music’, in the past, people used to take albums, burn the CD, photocopy the album cover and sell the album. I understand that this is a form of piracy, but this happened on a regular basis, so it was harder to stop. If people didn't have money to buy a CD, this type of method would be used to pirate music. In the same way, I don’t believe that it’s a crime, as music is for everyone. Once something is out in the media, it is very hard to regain it back.