Text 1:  Unpaid Downloading of Music from the Internet(1)

1    There are many forms of stealing. Althoughmost reasonable people would agree that some forms of theft such as burglary ormugging are always wrong, other areas are less clear cut. In this essay, Ishall look at downloading music from the internet as a grey area.

2    Stealing has probably existed since thebeginning of time, and certainly as long ago as the Old Testament, where it wasbanned by the commandments. All religions regard stealing as wrong, so youwould think that there were universally understood principles about what isstealing and what is not. However, this is not the case. This is also true ofmany other types of ethical issue. Despite this long-standing agreement thatstealing is wrong, many people steal. In fact, it is a very common crime, so itis worth considering why this has persisted for so long.

3    Before the internet became popular, peopleused to tape music from the radio. Lee (2006) says no one was bothered by thisbecause it was impossible to catch people. Everyone knew that it happened butrecord sales remained high so it clearly had no real impact on artists andlabels. Because of this, although home taping was technically illegal, it wasonly record companies who were worried about profits who could really call it“stealing”. Nobody knows how much music was copied and it still continues tothis day.

4    Lee goes on to say that just because it ispossible to catch people who download from the internet it doesn’t make it anyworse than people making copies from the radio. Carla (2006) agrees with Leeand says that downloading music from the internet is a “useful service tomusic”. She states that without this service the world of music would be“extremely bland and middle of the road”. Hibbs (2006) says that more and morepeople are downloading music without paying, and sharing it with their friends.Because everyone is doing it, it cannot be a bad thing and cannot be consideredwrong.

5    The real reason downloading from theinternet gets classed as stealing is because big music companies do not like tosee big profits escaping from them. Spratt (2004) states that record companiesare not even that bothered about ordinary people downloading from the internet.They are only worried about companies who make and sell pirate copies of theirrecordings. So why do they continue to prosecute file sharers? This can only beabout greed, especially as it is the poorest people who have to download forfree as they cannot afford to pay for legal downloads.

6    Cuttle (2007) says that people should payfor the products that they consume and if they cannot pay then they should gowithout. He sees downloading music for free as stealing. Kahliney (2006) agreeswith this. He says that small companies cannot afford to lose money throughpeople downloading their music for free. Even a few copies have a bad effect oncompanies who only employ a few staff and they might have to make peopleredundant. The type of music these companies produce tends to be quite obscureand unpopular so there is little effect on the majority of music listeners.

7    Carla (2006) says that new bands are oftenoverlooked by the major record companies and are only picked up by small,independent companies. There companies are often only able to distribute musicon a limited basis. Many have very small staff and resources and cannot get outon the road to sell the music to shops across the country, never mindworldwide. Bigger producers can employ sales teams to take the product out tothe market, either promoting it in shops, or even arranging tours to schools topromote the music to school children. School children buy records in thelargest numbers so a band that is promoted well to children is likely to riseup the charts and become better known to the general public. It is unrealisticto expect that every band can tour the schools, as schools limit how many bandscan visit in a term as they have other things to fit into the school day, and,furthermore, many bands couldn’t afford the costs of going on tour. This iswhere downloading performs a service to the small artist. When people downloadmusic for free, it actually helps to get it heard by a range of people whowould not know about it otherwise.

8    The public, especially people with littlemoney, should not have to lose out because of the interests of big business.Business is only motivated by profits. It’s in the interest of big business toprevent people downloading. Their argument is all about money, at the end ofthe day. They were not so bothered about copying from the radio because thequality of the reproductions was bad. If they really had a moral concern aboutstealing, they would have objected as much to taping as they do aboutdownloading.

9    There are some forms of stealing that areclearly always wrong, such as mugging a person or robbing their house. We haveseen in this essay that stealing is a long-standing ethical problem, and thateven though there have long been strictures against stealing, the moralposition has not prevented people from stealing. This essay has looked at someareas which are much less clear cut. There are arguments for and against whydownloading from the internet might be considered wrong. These depend on whatviewpoint you take – companies worried about profit will always see it as wrongbut ordinary music listeners think they are providing a helpful service. Wealso have to think about the artists, both what they can earn and also whetherit is good to have their music heard by a wider audience. Not everyone willagree with the arguments presented by either side. This is an interestingdebate and one that will doubtless continue for many years.

Activity1: Complete or translate the following expressions based on the informationgiven in the text.

Formsof theft:

b_________     m_________     downloading music for ________

在家翻录磁带____________

技术上违法____________        灰色地带____________

推广音乐____________         长期存在的道德问题____________

各区域界线分明________________________________

Activity2: Isolate the key information from the text, then illustrate the line ofreasoning of the argument with a graphic organizer.

Active3: Evaluate the argument with the help of the evaluation sheet.

Reading Evaluation Sheet