Unit 4 -1 , Sunghee Park

Intermediate English Writing (1) Monday 7-8

200801224 DIS

Park, Sunghee

 

 

Downloading and Sharing Music off the Internet

 

             It was nine years ago that I bought CD album lastly. It was a Christina Aguilera's second album. I had a CD player and collected albums a lot. Around that time, however, MP3 files started to be popular. Like others did, I began listening to music through MP3 player not through the CD player. MP3 files were usually easy to download for free, so people including me used to download and share off the Internet. Now, I pay a certain amount of money for music files because it has been strict to download and share the files, and free MP3 files usually have low quality. However, I believe it is not optional choice but people should not download and share music off the Internet for three reasons.

             First, to achieve someone's creation for free without permission is an obvious act of stealing. We consider use of someone's property without permission as theft. Though we cannot see or touch music itself, a work is one of the creator's properties. An artist took an effort to make it so we need to acknowledge his/her efforts and ownership. The owners allow people to share music if people pay a certain amount of money. Downloading and sharing music off the Internet, however, can be considered as stealing someone's property and discouraging artists from sales of the music. Therefore, it is morally not right and illegal act.

             Second, downloading and sharing music off the Internet can lower the quality of our culture. In order to develop the culture, we need to encourage people to have more creative activities. If people get enough rewards to their works, they would love to help promoting culture. In the situation where everyone can get music for free on the web, however, all people related to music industry such as singer, composer, and producer are not willing to make better music. After all, it affects the whole culture in a bad way and it might have effect on our country's competitiveness.

             Although some might insist that artists can earn enough money other than from sales of music itself, it is not true. Of course, there are many ways to earn money from music. For example, there are profits from concert, broadcast, and ringtone. It seems there are enough profits. The problem is, however, there are a lot more people who need to get money from the music. In music industry, there are many people related to music such as singers, band, composers, lyric writers, producers, recorders, and record stores. What if they cannot earn money from the main source of profits, sales of music? Downloading and sharing music off the Internet make their living worse.

             In summary, downloading and sharing music off the Internet are illegal, unhealthy to our culture and people's living. You might think it is not a big deal to download a MP3 file but it is a big deal if all people download and share a MP3 file for each. In addition, people do not download only one file. They repeat and repeat because it is beneficial to them. In the short term, it is right. In the long term, however, it cannot be right.