Shiver Me Timbres!!

Should people be allowed to pirate music? As a musician and a music consumer, I'm faced with a difficult dilemma. As a musician, part of me says no because I want fans to purchase my recordings. Another part of me says yes because allowing your music to be pirated is an extremely effective way of distributing your music to a global audience and getting your name out there. As a consumer, I say absolutely music should be pirated because it saves me hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year, which I would have otherwise spent at the music store. Another positive aspect of peer to peer networks is that they provide a market for musicians which just doesn't exist in a traditional music store. http://limewire.com/

Most of the bands and artists out there can't be found in most music stores, and they even can't be found in so called "independent" or "underground" music stores. I'm not talking about your neighbor's son's high school punk band. I'm referring to professional, world famous artists. The reason is because achieving distribution in the physical world is extremely expensive and time consuming. A lot of musicians simply can't afford it. But in cyber space, all it takes is a few mouse clicks and your recordings are instantly available to the entire world. It's free distribution on a truly global scale.

It really depends on who you are. There are many artists out there that want their music to be pirated and use it as a means of promotion and distribution. Obviously if you're Metallica, you're going to be against pirating music because you're already world famous and it would take away from your album sales. But if you're an unknown struggling musician or even a somewhat famous musician, allowing your music to be pirated can be quite a beneficial tool that will actually build your career rather than destroy it.