With the controversial Stop Online
Piracy Act (SOPA), there has arisen much debate concerning the ethical
implications of downloading music for free. Contrary to what record labels and
some conceited artists would claim, filesharing sites like Mediafire and
ThePirateBay are not in fact unethical. This is because there exists no
finite amount of music files. It would be illogical for any company to expect
customers to pay for an item of which there is an infinite supply.
Consider if I were to break into the Roadrunner
distribution warehouse and steal a crate of a thousand Nickelback CDs (not that
I would want to). This would indeed be stealing, and thus immoral. Because I am taking the CDs, I am in
effect eliminating potential profit that would have been made by selling them. However, if I were to download a Nickelback album, (again, not that I
would ever want to) I am not stealing any potential profit from Roadrunner
because there are an indefinite number of digital Nickelback albums floating about
in cyberspace and cannot be profited upon. The cost of producing an online file is zero dollars so downloading an album does not incur any financial loss to Roadrunner Records. Record labels are not satisfying any
demand by selling overpriced plastic discs to those individuals who only seek to
acquire the digital files therein. Likewise, websites like iTunes must believe
their costumers to be imbeciles in order to pay money for something that is
readily available for free. It is unfortunate that the US government is trying to shut down or castrate sites like Mediafire.com and ThePirateBay. These sites are not immoral because they are satisfying an economic demand more efficiently than iTunes or your record store do.
It no longer makes sense to expect consumers to
spend money on something of which there is an infinite supply. Just like a
business would be unsuccessful in its attempt to get consumers to pay money in
order to breathe oxygen, it would be just as unsuccessful in selling movie or
music files. With the age of the internet, music has ceased to be considered a
finite commodity like Televisions or Computers. Thus, The SOPA does nothing but
attempt to enforce archaic and imbecilic ideologies. The fact that record labels are losing money is a result of their own flawed business model.
