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What are the Ethics in Downloading Music for Free? 1
What are the Ethics in Downloading Music for Free?
Michele Keener, Kaylee Moore, Steven Hughart
Dr. Blanco's FYS 100

I. Finding reliable information on downloading music is as easy as going to the
Marshall University Libraries homepage. There you can access various reliable
databases. The information there is based on facts from highly educated scholars with
specialties in that specific subject. The websites available there cite within themselves.
So you can check your information. You can also research the articles publisher, writer,
and other characteristics. These characteristics include technical language and discipline
specific jargon, bibliographies, and longer articles. If you would simply do your research
on google you would more than likely find information that isn't entirely factual. This is
because articles can be written by anyone whether or not they have credentials due to the
First Amendment of the US Constitution, which allows Freedom of Speech. The
difference between non-scholarly information and scholarly peer-reviewed information is
that non-scholarly information can be written by anyone about anything. It is not always
solely based on facts. It can merely be someone's opinion. Non-scholarly information is
predominantly directed towards the general public. Non-scholarly information is
normally intended to entertain readers as opposed to stating the facts. Scholarly
information on the other hand is based on facts from highly educated individuals, and is
also used to communicate research and scholarly ideas. It is normally directed towards
other scholars and students as opposed to the general public. People are considered
acceptable to write scholarly information based on their education and experience in the

specific field you are researching. In this case someone who is highly educated in the
music industry would be beneficial to our research.
II. File Sharing became more well-known right before the beginning of the new
millennium in late 1999. This is when Shawn Fanning introduced Napster to the world.
This brought up some ethical issues among the community about if this is considered
piracy. Copyright was the main reason behind the debate. This reached its height in
2001. In December 1991, the RIAA sued Napster for copyright infringement. Napster
claimed that they are not liable because they did not directly download the music. They
just made it readily available to the public. In February 2001, Napster lost the case
because the US federal appeals court ruled that Napster had to stop trading copyrighted
material, and that they are in fact liable for the copyright infringement. Napster did keep
the services closed to the public once the case was closed, but they continued to work on
their membership services in order to fight remaining legal battles that might ensue. As a
result of the law suit Napster partnered with BMG to create a membership based service
that was set to begin in late 2002. This service would pay artists, music publishers and
record companies. This would change the agreements with copyright holders if
approved. Consequently, this caused other companies that were based in peer-to-peer file
sharing programs to become far more popular. This in return caused an ethical debate of
whether these companies were breaking the law.
III. Some people feel that the free publicity received from their work being pirated is
beneficial. It lets them become more well-known without the expense. A situation like
this is mentioned in Matthew David's "Peer to Peer and the Music Industry: The
Criminalization of Sharing". Matthew David is a senior lecturer in at Durham University
in the United Kingdom. He has a degree in Applied Social Science. He has an emphasis

in new social movements and forms of free online music sharing. He has wrote three
books on the subject. This makes him a credible source of information on the music
sharing dilemma. The publisher of this book SAGE in Los Angeles is found to be a
credible publisher of information. This is because their books are scholarly journals,
reference books, textbooks, etc. They are not publishers of popular books based on
opinion and generic information for entertainment. This book is pretty up-to-date on the
matters of music theft because it was published in June 2010. The content of the book is
extremely organized and logical as well as easy to comprehend for students. It covers the
topic comprehensively and is very useful to the research we are conducting. There are
few illustrations in this publication but they are reliable and organized. We feel the book
is directed toward a scholarly audience. David mentions the situation when Henry
Fuseli's painting The Nightmare was fraudulently copied. Fuseli was initially upset by
the fact that he was not being properly compensated. However, this infringement ended
up making him a household name. David also continues to talk about how files can now
be shared over the internet via an array of locations and software. This challenges the
power of the major record companies and threatens to destroy what they currently have.
Film and music are starting to take legal moves to try to control their property. They
want to patent and copyright their work to prevent illegal pirating of their products. They
do this because they see file sharing as a threat. However, as David states, they might not
be successful in their attempts to condemn file sharing. He likens the situation to
informational capitalism. This is because of the power and the money that is being
controlled. Hackers have expanded how they can profit from file sharing by taking it in
new directions. Laws have emerged to try to prevent people from theft by file sharing.
This has just caused technical modifications to the software to fit a loop hole in the laws.

These modifications have allowed for growth of the peer-to-peer filing sharing
community and has overcame the wants of the music and film industry. The book
concludes that since these file sharing companies challenge existing business models new
business models are able to thrive and emerge. This also gives us the ability to
understand the complexity of our technology in the world today. David concludes in the
book "This book is thus about more than just the music industry in a network society.
The music industry is emblematic of the network society.” (David, 2009)We feel that this
describes the complexity of the topic of theft in peer to peer sharing. It isn’t simply black
and white.
IV. Other articles directly look at the case of the industry as opposed to the overall
situation. A good example of this is the article "Peer-to-Peer File Sharing: The Case of
the Music Recording Industry" by Peter J. Alexander. He is affiliated with the Federal
Communcations Commission in Washington, D.C. This makes him a credible source of
information on this topic. The Article is taken from a peer reviewed scholarly journal
"Review of Industrial Organization" It is published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. The
Bias of the Publisher is undeterminable based on the topic being discussed. It is hard to
pick a side because the lines are blurred in this situation. This Article was published in
March 2002. This article is useful to our topic because it specifically shows the side of
the music industry. It is directed towards students and scholarly people interested in the
factual information behind the subject. There are no illustrations in this article. There
are relevant bibliographies in this article that are comprehensive. “Peer-to-Peer File
Sharing: The case of the Music Industry” shows the side of the music industry on this
controversial topic. It explores the digital distribution and market structure of the music
industry. It also goes into some detail on how the music industry took charge and took

some legal action to try to regain control of the distribution. They do have the theory
though that this legal action will not last very long. This is because of how these file
sharing companies are always evolving. They are continuously finding ways around the
laws. So that they will not be able to held responsible for infringement. It concludes that
the industry’s efforts to suppress peer-to-peer file sharing have overall been futile. In
their opinion, it is more than likely going to come to a point where the structure of the
music industry will change if these file sharing companies stay stable and at large.
Another article out there called “Opinion of the Court” takes a differently look at this
situation because it looks at both sides. This article comes from the Supreme Court
database. So it is definitely a credible source. It is organized in a manner that is
intellectual and focused. As with the other article it is hard to clearly tell the bias based
on the subject of it. It was written in 2005. So it is fairly recent. There is no
bibliography for this article. It is very useful information for us to have for this
assignment. Since this is all the supreme courts information on both sides of the legal
battle given to them by authority figures, we believe the author has authority in this
matter. However, the author is not clearly stated for this article. The article is very
comprehensive in its knowledge of the situation. It is directed towards scholarly people
who want facts on the subject. There are no illustrations in this article to look at. The
article begins by saying they feel that this infringement is upsetting the values of the
musicians making this music. They standing up for the file sharing companies though by
saying that if it is all considered infringement then technological innovation may be
discouraged, and our technological field coming to a halt would not be good. They over
all conclude that the infringement is taking place and the companies involved need to be
stopped. They state how much passion and anger was in this case from both sides. This

made for a difficult decision, and shows you that this is a far bigger situation that we
originally realized.
V. MULibraries is a great way for you to save money. First of all just think about how
much money you spend in book every year for school. This could be text books, research
books, or any academic books you are just curious about. Having those books readily
available to you for free through MULibraries is a huge money saver. You could
potentially save thousands of dollars a year by using it. Not only does MULibraires save
you money but it also can save you a bunch of time. MULibraries takes a few steps out
of the picture that save you time in the long run. First you don’t have to spend hours and
hours searching google for semi credible information to use in your papers. Second you
don’t necessarily have to come get a book you need every time you need research
information. Some books are available as ebooks. So with a simple click you can have
all the information you need readily available to you. Another way MULibraries saves
you time is by sometimes having the citation already done for you. Think of how much
time you spend trying to get all the information you need to do the citation correctly. If it
is already done for you, then you could save hours of work on each project. MuLibraries
can also increase your chance of getting a good grade if done properly. One reason for
that is because the information you are finding is far more scholarly. If you are citing a
study done at Johns Hopkins as compared to something John Doe wrote you are going to
sound far more scholarly yourself. Professors reading your paper will be able to see you
based all your opinions on actual facts not stuff you read on Facebook. This will mean
the world to them, and in return it will more than likely raise your grade on that paper.
So if you apply this to every paper you will raise your grade in the class. This
assignment as a whole has opened my eyes up to a few things. When it comes to

academic research we’ve realized what poor information people really do use for your
facts. As we’ve said before if you are just using Facebook or Google for you information
you are more than likely going to sound illiterate or unscholarly to say at the least.
People don’t seem to care about this for some reason. Doing this assignment has made
me realize how important it is to have your facts straight. So you can sound like an
educated person. When it comes to downloading music this assignment has made me
realize how controversial it is. It is something that is happening everyday but everyone
just lets slip under the radar as if it’s not happening. If you actually do your research you
see that downloading free music can risk people’s jobs and futures no one thinks about
that. This assignment has definitely change the way we will look at research information
forever.

Alexander, P. J. (2002, March 1). Peer-to-Peer File Sharing: The Case of the Music
Recording Industry [Electronic version]. Review of Industrial Organization, 20(2), 151-161.
Are Peer-to-Peer Internet File Sharing Services Liable for Copyright infringement by Their
Users? Pro. (2005). Supreme Court Debates, 8(6), 136.
David, M. (2010). Peer to Peer and the Music Industry: The Criminalization of Sharing.
Los Angeles: SAGE.
Opinion of the Court. (2005). Supreme Court Debates, 8(6), 156.
Ramey, C. (2003). Napster. In Continuum Encyclopedia of popular music of the world:
Performance and production. London, United Kingdom: Continuum. Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.marshall.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.marshall.edu:2090/content/entry/cont
pmwpp/napster/0

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