The music industry has been an important source of happiness, relief and fun for millions of people. However, since the industry’s shift from compact discs to online files, illegally downloading music has become much easier and thus more prevalent.  This piracy has proved detrimental to the wellbeing of the industry. One might ask why a $16.5 billion industry, as reported by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), would care if a few songs here and there were illegally downloaded. The problem, however, is much larger than many people realize. For example, in 2010 the RIAA reported over 1.2 billion songs were illegally downloaded, and the number only rises as the years go on.

The RIAA reported last year that illegally downloaded songs made up 95 percent of all downloaded songs. This statistic means that over 230 million songs are illegally downloaded a day and thus more than 84 billion songs are illegally downloaded each year. If all those songs were downloaded through iTunes, a legal music downloading service, the music industry would have earned an extra $105 billion just last year. With such significant profit loss in the industry, record labels are forced to cut positions that they no longer can afford, leaving many artists, songwriters, producers and technicians without work. The RIAA reported that more than 71,000 jobs have been lost in the music industry because of the negative effects of illegal downloading. While some people argue that illegally downloading music only affects executives, it actually affects many people from both small and large record labels.

As a music lover myself, I can’t help but question why others don’t see the importance of paying the mere $1.29 for a song they desire. For example, would you ever hire an electrician to come to your house and fix your wiring and then refuse to pay? The recording and selling of music is as much of a service and a job as electrical work is, and yet an abundance of people deny the artists and various workers their payment. Not only is this a serious crime, but also a crime that the government is acting upon. In 2009, Jammie Thomas-Rasset was sued by the RIAA for illegally downloading hundreds of songs. Thomas-Rasset went to trial and was found guilty by the jury for her crimes. She was charged $80,000 for 24 of the songs, according to the Capitol Record, Inc. v. Thomas-Rasset court files, which is a total of $1.9 million. As illegal music downloads continue and the punishments are upheld, let’s just hope that they sort the criminals by music genre.