Week 11 - Music Pirating...helpful for bands?

Using P2P (peer-to-peer) programs such as limewire can cause the music industry to lose a significant amount of money.

However, using programs like limewire can cause bands to be advertised to the public at a much faster rate. This P2P sharing program's true intentions are clearly legal, it allows people to publicly share files through the web (this is partially why they haven't been busted yet). Underground bands could raise in popularity (like the game rockband) by allowing people to record their work and let it spread. Artist Bruce Springsteen was the one of the top singers bootlegged that have caused sales to sky-rocket to 25 million copies sold for his album Titanic. The band Nirvana have benefited greatly from the norm of pirating increasing in society. Nirvana was a very influential band group that shifted the eighties style of music to the nineties. Without the assistance of P2P, that musical transition could have occurred at a much later time period. Songs that are spread on the web help build a reputation for the band in areas both rich and poor.

When bands become increasingly popular, the music industry can potentially profit from their talent once word gets out in who is the next hottest band. The music industry has lost some money in the process, but they could raise revenue when they join various record companies that would assist musician's solidify their career. Another advantage to peer-to-peer networks is that it allows files to be exchanged from people to people without a central server to “mediate” the exchange and doesn’t take any storage space to contain. Many people may consider this as a minor advantage, but even though online storage has an unlimited storage capacity, the mediating process of having an elected official to monitor what comes in and out is rather obnoxious and many would rather do it themselves.
This is up to your own person ethics. This issue holds many moral perspectives that it depends on each individual's perspective whether or not obtaining songs through the web is legal.