The logic behind illegally downloading music is simple: music prices are too high, and it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Marginally speaking, this is correct—illegally downloading one song will not cause any devastating damage to anyone. However, pirating in the long term has a large impact on artists and record companies, as well as the U.S. economy.
A study done at Columbia University showed that 22% of the U.S population pirates media, including movies, TV shows, video games and music. While illegally downloading music may not affect established musicians, it can easily impact musicians who are just starting out.
The price of downloading a song from iTunes covers the cost of recording the music, the space rented that is needed for recording and all the technology an artist uses. Besides the artists themselves, others involved in production, like audio engineers, computer technicians, producers and songwriters need to be paid. Overall, the pirating of media translates to a $12.5 billion dollar loss to the U.S. economy—and over 70,000 lost jobs, according to the Institute for Policy and Innovation.
There are plenty of cheap, if not free, options to get music other than iTunes that are legal. Websites like Pandora, Spotify, and 8tracks are free online and available for free downloading onto a computer. These sites are also available as apps which can be downloaded to any smartphone.
While many complain about pesky advertisements and song skipping limits, these can be easily avoided with a membership. For example, a premium Pandora membership is $1.99 per month, with no advertisements and no skip limits. Compared to the $1.29 per song, and the illegality of pirating, this cost is a good compromise for everyone.