Kirk Bouley: Music Downloads
Ever since the launch of the file sharing website called Napster, there has been a constant ongoing fight between the record companies and people illegally downloading music. There are millions of people that have downloaded countless songs. I don’t feel think that it is entirely the fault of the consumer. Before the Napster era, a new CD would cost about $20. New the cost of a new CD is about half that. I was asked to think about a possible solution to this problem. Instead of coming up with an idea that is completely new I thought about what systems we already have in place. In the US, if you have some sort of creative material that you want to protect, you can get copy write protection. I don’t see why a similar type of system couldn’t be applied to music, especially since it is a form of creative material. It would work just like a copy write. It is capable of being renewed but after a certain amount of time it can become common property. I think that if the artist wants to pay to re-release the song, that there music stays protected, if not, it becomes common property.
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