Songwriters Say Piracy Eats Into Their Pay

Songwriters Say Piracy Eats Into Their Pay. The debate around music downloading and its effect on creative professional's income has been running through the same set of arguments since Metallica & Dr. Dre decided to cry wolf about Napster. It usually goes something like this - my song has been downloaded N millions of times and if everyone of those that downloaded my song had bought a CD I would have made oodles of money! I am sure that such comparisons make for uncomforatble realizations. The quesiton is, however, are these concerns realistic?

While many people download music, many download music they would have never gotten around to listening to otherwise. May people get exposure to new forms of music, new sounds and styles, through the practice of searching for music online and downloading more than you were looking for. A sort of impulse shopping but on a larger scale. This introduction to new things can be really valuable in creating larger and more diverse audiences for artists. There is certainly a subset of people that only listens to mp3's and such, but that subset is still small. Some people then are moved to buy CD's they would have never thought of buying precisely because of this introduction.

On the other hand, the music industry has long had a way to force people to buy a full CD sometimes for a single song. Music downloading offers listenders a way to hand-pick their selections without having to listen through a dozen of uninteresting creations just to get one they are interested in. There is a clear business model, yet this model requires change, which, I suppose, an established industry is not particularily keen on.