Mp3's: Friend Or Foe?
Section: Technology Essays
This makes matters even worse because people just get what is called a CD-Burner and writes the MP3's onto a CD so they can now listen to MP3's on any audio CD player. People could also get what is called an MP3 player. An MP3 player is a small portable device that stores and plays MP3's. An example of one of these is a NOMAD Player (made by Creative). The users of MP3's are having their fun now, but how long will this adventure last? How long will recording companies and artists allow money fall out of their pockets by some little teenager who has no clue about the copyrights or laws he/she is breaking? Not very long it seems.
More and more companies are teaming up together to fight MP3's. The 5 biggest global music and entertainment companies (Time Warner Inc., EMI, Sony, Seagram and Bertelsmann) have hooked up with big computer businesses like IBM to try to control the music distribution over the Internet. According to Market Tracker International, legal Internet-related music sales rose to $147 million from $29 million in 1997. This shows that companies can use the Internet as an advantage. Companies need to use marketing techniques to lure users into their sites to actually pay for music even though the net is filled with illegal web sites distributing the product for free. Vorton Corp., for example, lures up to 50,000 visitors a day just for selling CD's at reasonable prices.
The number of sales for Vorton Corp. increases as the illegal downloads decrease. Organizations, all over the web, have full-time employees surfing the Internet all day looking for offending MP3 sites. Artists and recording companies are losing the money they should make from their hard and creative work because of illegal downloading of MP3's. The battle is just beginning. People need to know that even though it is easy to get MP3 files for free. They are creating the artists and the recording companies, and are breaking the law. Although MP3 files seem like a friend, they are really everyone's foe.
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