Music Sharing - Good or Bad?

[Jason]

Some claim it is stealing. In fact, Napster, the first popular sharing portal, was sued back in the day. Anyway, nowadays, there is so much ad-supported stuff on YouTube, I suppose sharing has lost it's appeal and many sharing portals have probably been hacked by music companies with viruses.

 

[Arantor]

Of course it's stealing: it's breach of copyright unless you explicitly have permission and rights to share. Which is why Napster was sued.

YouTube implicitly has permission to facilitate things because of Content ID and making "sure" that copyright owners can get the revenue for their creations.

As Gabe Newell (founder of Valve and therefore Steam) put it, piracy is a service problem. Piracy went down quite rapidly before YouTube's existence because iTunes came along with makings songs available for a buck, and albums for usually like $10, easy download. Make it easier to be legit and people will go there.

Now of course, music is utterly commoditised through Spotify etc that sharing is no longer relevant and artists are finding it harder than ever to get paid.

 

[Jason]

Now of course, music is utterly commoditised through Spotify etc that sharing is no longer relevant and artists are finding it harder than ever to get paid.

Is this the main reason for the downfall of music now you think?