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Many individuals can not operate throughout the day unless they have their blackberry, I Phone, or another popular cell phone to keep them organized and abreast of what they have to complete that day. Then there are the college students that love their music (who doesn’t) and can not go without their IPod, or other electronic device that holds the latest and their most precious tunes. Individuals in general love one word- “free”. Anything that is free someone will jump at the chance to get that item. Well- when you go to any search engine and type in “free music” and millions of websites will pop up. However, how many of these websites give credit to whom the credit is due?

Over the internet there are thousands of free game websites, and everything that you can think of, there is someone somewhere that is offering it for free- including music. How can this be though, when each song has an author that has copyrighted their music? How does a company get music for free from record labels and individuals are still buying cds from the store? Besides those facts, how on earth do the artists get their cut in the music that they produce if companies are selling them for free? My personal opinion is that the artists do not and that is why our textbook had that article about the RIAA.

So, should music be available for free on the internet, because other forms of entertainment are? I think that the artists should get paid for what they produced. However, if the proper accreditation is given and the artist is asked before their music is used by a free music downloading company, then it is not plagiarism, or stealing, therefore, I think that it would be ok, for the company to use the artist’s music, as long as, it is in writing.

Now is it wrong to download copyrighted music? Yes, if the artist has not given an individual or a company permission to download their music for free or for money, then that is wrong, because that company or individual that is downloading the music is stealing, knowingly or unknowingly. Like the scenario that is given in our text book with Jose and Rachael. They downloaded music assuming that it was ok. If I was them I would have checked with the RIAA to make sure the source that they used to download their music was legit and had permission to do so through the RIAA.

Do websites that offer “free music” give credit to whom credit is due? Some may and some may not, however, every individual that plans to download music should do so from a liable source or check with the RIAA before downloading the music.

Reference

Lawrence, A. & Weber, J. Business and Society

McGraw Hill Publishers (2008)