Music Downloading

Music downloading is one of the biggest phenomenon's to hit the market in the past decade, and undoubtedly you've downloaded some music yourself. But lately music downloading has become an issue, and record companies along with their artists have tried to stop this new wave from happening. Though some people consider file sharing illegal; I believe it's absolutely necessary for musicians to get there names out, and for music lovers to hear there sound.

Viranda Normand said it best "Most artists are dying for exposure, he explained, so when the record labels hold back music like candy from a child, it's not about the fans anymore. It's about some pre-planned release schedule that's coordinated for business. It's about the money." As a musician in a band, were always looking for ways to get our music out there. By posting our music on various download engines; it has enabled us to be heard by a wider audience, one we couldn't have reached with out it. But to big name money hungry bands, music file swapping has become scarce. In 2002 the landmark file-sharing service Web site, "Napster" was shut down for illegal downloading. "Although it was a friend to millions of music fans around the world, it was the foe of several artists, including Dr. Dre and Metallica, who filed lawsuits against the company" (Moss, Corey) Napster eventually came back early last year through negotiations and new methods of trading music by charging money for songs.

But regardless of money hungry artists, it is nearly impossible to stop music file swapping. When we trade music online its done by a system called P2P or "peer to peer." "When we use P2P software, our computer's hard drive becomes a server that allows someone else to access files stored on our computer. In short: Another computer user can connect directly to our computer and download whatever music files we've stored there (and vice versa.)" (Chillis, Brian) Though Napster has changed, there is still several other file sharing sites out there. Morpheous and my favorite, Bearshare are free download sites that have found legal loopholes for having this kind of website.

"When FM radio began