According to Paul Boutin at Wired.com, The Age of Music Piracy is Officially Over. He may be right. Paul says that there is no reason to steal music anymore, unless you're just cheap.
Now that most music can be downloaded as high as 256Kbps quality, songs are 99 cents or lower, and there are a variety of legal sources, he makes a good argument. You can even legally download the Beatles now. Other than sheer unwillingness to pay for music, there isn't really a good reason to download pirated songs. The quality usually isn't as good - there's no guarantee you'll even get the whole song - and there's always that risk, however slight, that you'll get tagged as a downloader and sued.
If you absolutely have to have free music, there are alternatives out there, like Jamendo, a service full of free music that is available under various Creative Commons licenses. Most of the licenses are pretty liberal, allowing you to sample, remix and in general rework the tracks for your pleasure. A similar service is Magnatune, which provides music that is free for any type of personal use. For commercial use there is a one time fee and no royalties. That means that now matter how much profit your project makes, you only pat the one time fee.
On further thought, Paul Boutin is right. There is no reason to pirate music anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment