Music piracy began by consumers copying a tape and passing it around to family, friends, and coworkers. There were, however, more serious “bootleggers” who would sell copied tapes for inexpensive prices, out of the backs of vans, or at flea markets. This form of piracy did not cost the music industry much money. However, technological advances have made it possible for music to be streamed from person to person quickly and easily. People are then downloading/uploading this music for free and enjoying it at their leisure. Companies including the former Napster, had over 60 million users who co

Mergers of major corporations are also occurring to prevent music piracy. Companies are combining with one another to create sites where people can download/upload music while still respecting copyright laws. AOL Time Warner initially proposed a subscription where for a flat monthly fee, a consumer would have access to download unlimited music. The company soon realized that this was a “nonstarter”. Other companies have come up with better plans to create sites so that theirs will not be “nonstarters“. Vivendi Universal and Sony developed what is known as Pressplay. Pressplay allows a consumer to pay-per-listen (sort of like pay-per-view on cable television). This premiered in 2001. Yahoo! is in negotiations to join with these companies to distribute their digital catalogs on its portal. Consumers will have access to almost 50% of the world’s music.

Before the incident with Napster, another move that had been made was to support legislation that extended their copyright protections. One example of these efforts was the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995. “Under the current set of copyright rules, a radio broadcaster pays a royalty to the copyright owner of a song but does not pay a royalty to the record label to broadcast over-the-air” (Meisel). In December 2000 the US Copyright Office added on to the act by saying that “ . . .any song played over the Internet must pay the record label a broadcast royalty as well as the music publisher” (Mathews, 2001). This addition also includes over-the-air radio stations that stream online, even if the same song is playing at the same time on their “on-air” station. The 1995 legislation demonstrates the strength of the music industry in extending its scope of copyright protections.

In April of 2000 the big hitters of the music industry such as EMI Recorded Music, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and BMG Entertainment, decided to take matters into their own hands by suing Napster. The music industry charged that Napster “ . . . committed contributory and vicarious copyright infringement because its service facilitated the widespread sharing of copyrighted music among its 60 million registered users” (Meisel). Napster countered by saying that its service was subject to a fair use exemption because of legitimate space shifting and sampling uses of the service. The suit was successful and Napster officially shut down in July 2001. Although this did not end the problem of free downloading, it made a step in the right direction.

The main unit of sale no longer remains and album, but a song.. One possible solution to benefit this form of sale would be to create a site where consumers can pay a fee to download and create their own CDs. This would free the consumer of the physical restraints of buying a compact disk when the disk may contain pieces that the consumer may not want. Consumers will enjoy the freedom to pick and choose particular songs that they want to purchase for their enjoyment. The benefits achieved by record companies will be to “ . . .have freedom in their product offerings in terms of artistes, types of music, age of music, product enhancement and combinations with other media, access to tickets, and access to artistes” (Meisel). This increases the freedom of the consumers and the freedom of producers of music.

In February 2001 the United Nations Music Piracy Act fully came into effect. Over five years after the treaty was signed, the needed number of ratifications for it to be enforced was achieved on February 20 when Hond

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