Illegal download which means the user download the product they want from the Internet but not in an appropriate way or didn’t pay for what they download. It was not new to us, starting from the Internet becoming more generalize, we can easily upload or download movies, songs and soap operas, which makes piracy become harder to protect.
Starting from 2010, smartphone and mobile network technology were well developed, a new sharing platform was form, which can easily access with your smartphone or laptop with connecting to the Internet. It acts like online streaming, using Spotify as an example, Spotify will buy the copyright of the song or album from the company, user no need to download the songs, they can listen to it by using the Internet. This act seem can be preventing citizen to illegal download.
However, the numbers of illegal download of music didn’t drop so much, citizen keep using the sharing software like Spotify, but still illegal downloading what they want. According to the survey done from US, 57million of Americans are downloading music illegally, the numbers are ever-growing too.
One the reason is, sometimes the online streaming perform cannot provide a full version of the song or just only a part of the album, if the user wants the complete version, they need to pay for a VIP account. Moreover, the VIP account only last for few months, then they need to pay for it again to keep listening to what they want. To the young, who are not willing to pay for this VIP account will just listen to the song in a free account, and download the full version illegally, which didn’t help to duel with the problems.
Nevertheless, user cannot download the song from the software, which means if they are not cover by the Wifi or they lack mobile data, they cannot use the software to listen music. Therefore, the simplest way to solve the problem is downloading the music illegally.
Back to the problem, is there any way to protect the piracy from creative media. Illegal download of music is only a part of the problem, films and dramas also facing the same situation. Government cannot block all the illegal download site from the Internet, producer still need to get the money to maintain their life.
Therefore, are there any new options for the company to produce their artwork in a better way, like only launch in the Internet? In overseas country, sometimes they will have a live streaming music festival, which can let the fans to enjoy the music in a legal way, artist can get back what they deserve, also can promote their brand, providing a win-win-win evidence to each other. So, is it the trend of the creative industry to publish their work, are we going to see more live streaming preform in the future?
Reference:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2008/jun/17/illegaldownloadsthesolution
Goffy 