Do you think Pirating music is causing the music industry to lose a lot of money? This was a topic that my best friend and I where talking about. What are your oppinions on the matter?

I think that the industry may be loosing money but the artist makes most of their money through ticket and merchandise sales.

Record companies increase their profits by billions of dollars every year, and I believe pirating music has actually increased public awareness of artists and fueled successful startups like iTunes. I believe that downloading has never done anyone any monetary or physical harm, and actions that the industry is taking against many unfortunate sharers are a bit too harsh. The reason that piracy continues is because the record labels are fail to provide an equally effective (or in this case, since it cannot be free, a much better one) service in legal music downloads. Technologies like DRM put a paying customer in a corporate in an unfair binding contract that sometimes breaches the bounds of common sense. This leaves many with no choice, but to download free and unadulterated music from file sharing networks.

The record companies would fair if they lowered the price of CDs 14-16 songs for like $22 not gonna fly

CD prices are ridiculous, and artists are already living beyond their needs. Even if pirating does cause them a hit in profit, they'll survuve and still be wealthier than most of us.

In the future, you probably won't even own music anymore. There will be just a virtual library of music that you'll just pay a monthly service charge to access it. Right now, popular music changes faster than ever before and keeping up with the hottest tunes is more costly than ever. What cracks me up is that some people will pay $3.95 for a ringtone, which is a short snippet of a song, but complain to buy the whole song for a dollar.

Allofmp3.com - a Russian website charges 15 cents a song, and according to them it's legal!

Just as a side note, I can't believe that site really exists, I heard about it on The Office and thought it was a myth!

In Soviet Russia music pirates you!

Yeah the site is legal (In CIS at least). I don't know whether it is legal in the US though.(hence the recent multi trillion lawsuit by RIAA)

I personally have no problem with the music industry losing money- I think so because I have a very strong opinion that it is ironic these "musicians" and "artists" make more money than the doctors who saves lives, and teachers- the most important roles in youth's lives. (It is always obvious that a teacher does not teach for the money they make, which is crap in the first place).

Since widespread piracy (when Napster came out, or currently Limewire) of course the industry loses the money. And I'm not sad about it either.

Artists get to have the money because they play large arenas which entertain a lot of people at once...Just like a sports star...Taking a little money away will not bankrupt them and having their music on the web will only increase ticket sales...The more people who listen to a song the better for the artist. But we used to have free radio...What a bummer

Pirating Music is something that every person has done at one point or another. Artists really do work hard on their songs and it is definately wrong to continue downloading their property. This does not mean that I wont do it ever, I just know that im doing something wrong when I do. My Economics teacher recently sparked a conversation about this not too long ago, he showed us a rather silly poster that said that downloading musc was downloading communism. I laughed at the poster, but then I went home and searched for it to post it on my myspace profile. :)

the artist are all taken care off, the only ones that are loosing money are the record companies and such

well of course the music industry is losing money. they are losing customers. why would you buy a 15 dollar album that has only one or two songs you like, when you can download those two song for free?

I believe the music industry is losing millions of dollars a year because of pirating music because they are producing those cd's that nobody is buying. I just recently heard that the music executives were getting together to consider making all music available online for free downloads, so that they will not lose as much money every year.

Downloading music really isn't hurting the music record industry. If it is, it's not as bad as it's made out to be. The RIAA justified a decrease in artist royalties recently by saying that it needs the money to counter the damage done by downloading. I find this to be a thin and flimsy veil for pure greed.

The RIAA aren't making music, they aren't writing the songs that we listen to or sing along to, or cover in bands or just generally enjoy. They are a corporate entity that is really only in it to protect their money. It makes me sick, especially reading that when one downloader was found to be dead, the RIAA actually told the family that they had 60 days to 'grieve' over the man's death before lawsuits would commence.

Downloading has done a lot of good, I believe. It's promoted good music, and it's spread the message of sweet tunes to a lot of people. I've actually bought more music because of downloading than ever before. I say, embrace it!

I can see where illegal downloads are attractive, as who wants to pay 20 bucks when they can get something for free?

I think the bigger the question is, just because it's cheaper or more convenient, does that make it morally ok? It's one thing if an artist creates a website and chooses to release some music for free download (typically in the hopes that someone will like it enough to buy the whole CD), but what about those artists that do not want their music downloaded? Don't they have a right to their intellectual property?

I look at it this way. This isn't exactly the same, but the concept is similar. You write a paper for college, you put a LOT of effort into it, and TONS of hours. You email a copy to a friend to proof it and give an opinion on your topic. The next week you find out it's been posted to one of those websites where people pay to download college papers. You get nothing for your hard work, and others have profited over it.

I agree that CD prices are overpriced, and even though the artist may be rich and have more money that they could ever spend, the bottom line is that the music is still their property that they created. If they are associated with a greedy record company, it was their choice to sign with them and share profits, so the companies do have the right to a stake in it. I think piracy probably contributes to those constant rises in prices....the *greedy* record companies are going to find ways to make it up and the people purchasing it legally will end up paying the price.

I think the fact that the majority of our society puts such a high level of importance on movie stars, music stars and sports figures is why they can get away with charging ridiculous sums of money....we're willing to pay it! Yet we don't idolize our military, police officers, fire fighters, and those that put their lives on the line or donate time to help others, are the real heroes in my opinion! But I digress....
: )

just to clarify:
"Yet we don't idolize our military, police officers "

I shouldn't have said "we", but rather "our society" and of course the media....

Thanks : ),
Lee