Music piracy is the copying and distributing of recordings of a piece of music for which the rights owners (composer, recording artist, or copyright-holding record company) did not give consent. In the contemporary legal environment, it is a form of copyright infringement, which may be either a civil wrong or a crime depending on jurisdiction. The late 20th and early 21st centuries saw much controversy over the ethics of redistributing media content, how much production and distribution companies in the media were losing, and the very scope of what ought to be considered piracy – and cases involving the piracy of music were among the most frequently discussed in the debate.
History
In August 1906 The Copyright Law for Music Act 1906, known as the T.P. O'Connor Bill was passed by the British Parliament, following many of the popular music writers at the time dying in poverty due to extensive piracy during the piracy crisis of sheet music in the early 20th century. Sheet music peddlers would often buy a copy of the music at full price, copy it, and resell it, often at half the price of the original. Music publishing associations hired police officers and former soldiers to raid printing presses and shops, confiscating sheet music from street sellers under a law allowing seizure of counterfeit property. The film I'll Be Your Sweetheart (1945), commissioned by the British Ministry of Information, is based on the events of the day.
The invention of the Internet and digital media created music piracy in its modern form. With the invention of newer technology that allowed for the piracy process to become less complicated, it became much more common. Users of the web began adding media files to the internet, and prior potential risks and difficulties to pirating music, such as the physicality of the process, were eliminated. It was much easier for people with little to no knowledge of technology and old piracy methods to gather media files.
The first application that demonstrated the implications of music piracy was Napster. Napster enabled users to exchange music files over a common free server without any regard for copyright laws. Napster was quickly shut down after lawsuits filed by Metallica and Dr. Dre and a separate lawsuit in regards to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Other music sharing services such as Limewire continued to be a resource to those searching for free music files. These platforms were also removed after a few years of service due to copyright laws and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. After finding some loopholes, piracy began to exist in more legal forms, an example being Pirate Bay. This technical legality was due to the format of the websites and their country of origin and administration. The websites were set up so that the site itself did not host any of the illegal files, but gave the user a map as to where they could access the files. Additionally, in Pirate Bay's case, the website was hosted under Swedish law, where this "map" was not illegal.
Arguments over legality
Fearing an impact on potential sales from internet piracy, industry associations like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) lobbied for stricter laws and more severe punishments of those breaking copyright law. Record companies have also turned to technological barriers to copying, such as DRM, to some controversy. These organizations have tried to add more controls to the digital copy of the music to prevent consumers from copying the music. For the most part, the music industry has argued that, if not DRM, then some similar measures are necessary for them to continue to make a profit.
Critics of the record companies' strategy have proposed that the attempts to maintain sales rates are impeding the rights of legitimate listeners to use and listen to the music as they wish. When the US Congress passed the Copyright Act of 1909, it deliberately gave less copyright control to music composers than that of novelists: "Its fear was the monopoly power of rights holders, and that that power would stifle follow-on creativity". According to the internationally established Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, "Existing laws and regulations may be too broad and general to deal adequately with the rapid technological developments that facilitate digital piracy, and policy makers may need to consider enacting some specific provisions to deal with these infringements. Such provisions should not unduly impede legitimate digital communications, nor unreasonably impact on the Internet as an effective communications platform, commercial channel and educational tool..."