Is downloading music illegal?

Illegal music downloading for or against?

• I'm going to point out a number of reasons for illegal downloading in relation to the music industries inability to evolve to consumers needs & technology 1) The Most obvious is many people listen to mostly mainstream music, artists that are well in the public eye are considerably richer than other underground bands. Thus downloading their music is of little effect to them due to record sales/tours 2) The profit that goes to the artist is minute in comparison to the majority of the profit taken by the record company & its affiliates. A rough example is 10-20% is given to the artist 3) The albums cost too much, mass producing allows for cheap production cost that at most will cost 15 cent yet are sold at an average then of 10-15 (insert currency), despite at times large recording costs 1000 albums will produce ten grand, 1000 albums isn't many. Take 10,000 albums=100,000 (insert currency) which is still relatively considered poor sales. 4) Illegal music sharing has always existed in some form, most notably burnt cds & bootleg-cassetes before file-sharing. This shows an inherent flaw in the marketing to music-listeners (or meeting consumer needs) One that has only simply become more obvious now

• Answer:

  Let me re-phrase your rationalizations: 1) I think it's up to me to decide when someone has made enough money, after that it's okay to steal from them. 2) I don't approve of the contract deal these artists have made with their record companies, it's not fair to the artists. Therefore I will steal their work, damaging both the artist and the record company. 3) If something costs more than I'd like to pay, I just steal it. 4) Everyone does it.