Back Side Records

Ever since Metallica sued Napster for helping people “share” their music in the form of mp3s, this whole discussion about the issue of piracy has been going on.

Blame it on the ingenuity of the mp3 and the reach of the internet but what everyone agrees with is that the way music is promoted or distributed has changed and so has the landscape of the music business altogether.

There’s another side to the debate that can’t be ignored either. Since most record labels use CDs to sell the music of artists and bands, they normally charge about $ 16 or so even if the buyer wants to listen to one ‘popular’ song on that album.

Music labels counter this argument by stating that they spend a lot of money making the album and promoting it, and therefore these costs are justified.

Yet there’s one thing that both sides are cognizant of: you can’t stem piracy while it uses the internet as its medium. Who can stop anyone from uploading mp3s onto a website?

Consumers are protected by the ability of ‘fair use’ which states that a copy of the CD or DVD that they have purchased can be copied provided it is used for education, research, criticism or news reporting.

But while the debate rages on, as to whether this is ethical or not, perhaps it is in the best interests of the music industry to use the internet and the widely-used mp3 format to promote their artists and bands instead of fighting against the flow.