Unfair to the artists or greedy: would you stop downloading?

Intellectual Property rights is something that is becoming more of an issue everyday because of the internet and the wide range of information, songs, videos and images that are available to us as users. There have been many very public instances of copyright infringement in the media and the most obvious topic of discussion is the realm of P2P(Peer to Peer) file sharing. Thousands of songs, TV shows and movies are illegally downloaded everyday across the world without a second thought or any guilt from most downloader’s. I know personally that I never really think about the fact that what I’m doing is illegal and I think this is partially because it has become so common without punishment. It is as if there’s an unspoken law among the masses and consumers that we can download songs without paying for them and that we shouldn’t feel bad about it even though there are institutionalized laws saying that we shouldn’t.

There was an instance back in 2000 when downloading music first became popular where well known artists Metallica lashed out against Napster(the first big P2P downloading host) and sued them for illegally distributing their music. Below is a link to Metallica's attack against the downloading of their music. They took part in a skit that was directed at university students comparing students stealing their music to someone coming into the student’s room and stealing their stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miIIgxXiyU8

This was seen as a slap in the face to Metallica’s fans that are primarily young people and university students as the band alienated them in the media. If you think about how much money the band actually makes from each CD that is sold in retrospect it’s probably not that much for such a well-known and popular band as Metallica. It makes them appear money hungry and although it is somewhat understandable as their whole album was pre released for free on the internet, I think they went about it the wrong way by personally attacking students/ their fans on live television.

There are certain bands whose albums I always go into a store to buy because they are smaller, less well known bands and I think they need the money more then a big band like Metallica or Britney Spears who are already extremely wealthy and have a huge fan base while raking in millions of dollars from world wide tours every year. It’s important to keep in mind that auxiliary markets like concerts, branding and merchandise are the main sources of income for popular artists. Less well know bands need the exposure so they are very happy to post there music on their websites with samples and links to where people can purchase their songs if fans want to. The internet is a great tool for getting yourself heard and I think it was a poor decision on the part of Metallica to alienate their young fans. Metallica saw the error of their ways a few years later and embraced the internet as a tool that can create a larger fan base for them by posting a Metallica you tube channel for fans to post covers of them singing Metallica songs. Even this band that was initially so against the downloading of music is coming to terms with the fact that it is here to stay and that the internet is a great way to interact with their fans. Here is the video from Lars front man of Metallica where he thanks fans for covering there music and making it there own: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWpPozcFSGc

The way I see it is P2P downloading is something that is pretty much unstoppable. There are an endless number of downloading sites and bit torrent sites that post and stream TV shows and movies hours after they are first aired and albums posted the day after they are released in store. There are so many accessible and easy to use technologies and software for people to use to put songs, images and materials that are not there’s and that they have no copyright ownership to be distributing it on the internet. It would be almost impossible to control all the content and distribution of materials without charging a large portion of North America with copyright infringement.

Would YOU stop downloading?