Illegal Downloading: Damaging The Music Industry

The music industry is, as we all know, a progressive industry continually moving forward and growing from both within and outside. In order for the music industry to continue to grow and change, though, finances must be continually pumped into that particular section of media. Maybe artists don’t make their real money from CD’s and legal methods of music sales, but these sales are invaluable to certain companies. Imagine the following: a record company buys the right to sell the music of an established artist. They make little or no money off of the CD sales because of illegal downloading. Then a up and coming artist approaches that company about getting a record out there so that their sound can be heard and they can have a shot at the big time. If that record company cannot make money off of an established artist, they will never take the risk of buying out a new artist. In this way, we might miss out on a whole new sound that can change the music industry.
There is also the matter of measuring the CD sales. Record sales are important in rating artists and allowing distributors to see what music is “hot” at the time. Illegal downloading can easily skew these numbers and damage the ability to see where finances should be invested in the music industry. Not to mention that illegal downloading ruins the finance flow of the entire music industry. This site also discusses how the integrity of music copyright laws must be respected, because once we begin to question the current laws and or allow them to be broken, it will make it much easier to justify further infractions. The integrity of copyright must be respected for not only music, but all media industries to prosper.