Cause/Effect Essay: Music Piracy

The Music Industry in an Electronic Era Digital music piracy has been a concern for music industry for many years now. In, 1999, the creation of “Napster”, a peer to peer file sharing site, sparked the fire to the music piracy phenomenon. Most information on music theft is coming from federations or corporate business men preaching to the general public that music piracy is detrimental to the music industry as a whole. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on their website states, “In the decade since peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.7 billion.” (“RIAA-Anti Piracy”). While that statistic may be true, it does not mean that other factors have not contributed to this decline in sales. The notion that music piracy, in itself, is the main cause of the decrease in music sales is irrational. Other sources speculate that music piracy alone isn’t the only factor attributing to the decline in the sales. Major factors that are overlooked by the music executives, are also to blame for the music industry’s “death”. The three main circumstances to investigate when looking at the music industry’s decline are, the rise in music streaming websites, lack of physical music sales, Apple’s iTunes’s singles.

With technology on the rise, it was only a matter of time before digital music could be enjoyed without paying for it. Sites such as Spotify, Pandora Radio, and Grooveshark allow music consumers to listen to virtually any song in seconds without purchasing. Music streaming can be done relatively anywhere. With the spread of WiFi across the globe, people can connect and stream music from wherever they may be. This method of listening to music has made the need to pay for music unnecessary. In turn, track sales have fallen as consumers switch to ondemand streaming. Without having to pay to listen, clearly music revenue will fall. Music streaming and music...