Filesharing and Torrenting Music

With the current day and age technology is continuously evolving, making everything easier to come by and find. Going on google can lead to information, apps, games, and programs that help with over efficiency and productivity. These search engines can also be very helpful for finding Bit Torrents and bittorrent compatible files. These Torrents are most commonly used for illegally downloading music files like albums and songs from different bands/composers, getting all the tunage with minimal work and no pocket money. File sharing and illegal downloads are not killing the music industry, because what keeps music alive is the mutual love for it fans share.

It is becoming a common trend to illegally download things like music, books, games and apps Focusing on music, many people (mostly with jobs in the music industry/community) have been continuously saying that torrenting music is killing the industry. That supporting the band(s) or artist(s) would be putting money towards the music to allow more to be made. Although other people have been countering with the argument that the love of music kept it alive this long and will continue to do so with or without the music being top purchased on iTunes.

Dee Snider, a rock and roll legend and member of the band Twisted Sister was interviewed by LoudWire.com on the death of rock and roll. His opinion was,

“Rock ‘n’ roll is alive and well and thriving on social media, in the streets, and in clubs and concert halls all over the world. And the bands playing it are more genuine and heartfelt than ever because they are in it for one reason: the love of rock ‘n’ roll.”

This comment can be transferred to any genre of music. Most bands and artists have Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and Instagram profiles, they leak previews of their new albums and give out free merchandise bundles. Which is according to the logic that ‘torrenting music is stealing from bands’

Recently there was a case study done by Time Magazine titled, “Illegal Music Downloads Not Hurting Industry.” This study concluded a lot of interesting data. Including:

• Men are more likely to download music.

• People with higher education stream more music.

• Average income doesn’t affect the amount of music streaming.

• Based on cultural differences/economic structure in different countries downloads vary across the globe.

The study proved that, “Specifically, the study found that legal purchases would be about 2 percent lower without illegal downloading available—meaning, yes, illegal downloads boost legal downloads. Their conclusion: people who download pirated music mostly do so for tunes they wouldn’t have ever spent money on. The positive effect of streaming was even larger.”

The article also made the point, “Clicking on a legal download website does not equal buying music, past studies have found that “some people buy and steal a lot of music because they love music”.”

The final outcome/result of the study is that the people that illegally download their music wouldn’t buy it if they didn’t torrent it. Meaning that there was no initial ravine for the music industry to be making for them to really lose any money.

Works Cited:

Kreps, Daniel. "Gene Simmons: 'Rock Is Finally Dead. It Was Murdered'"Rolling Stone. N.p., 7 Sept. 2014. Web. 03 Oct. 2014.

Hartmann, Graham. "Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider Responds to Gene Simmons’ ‘Rock Is Dead’ Claim Read More: Dee Snider Responds to Gene Simmons' 'Rock Is Dead' Claim | Http://loudwire.com/twisted-sister-dee-snider-gene-simmons-rock-is-dead-claim/?trackback=tsmclip." 

Loudwire.com. Loudwire Network, 11 Sept. 2014. Web. 3 Oct. 2014. Rothman, Lily. "Your Illegal Music Downloads Not Hurting Industry, Study Claims." 

Entertainment Illegal Music Downloads Not Hurting Industry Study Claims Comments. N.p., 21 Mar. 2013. Web. 06 Oct. 2014.