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Either way, music piracy seems to be growing stronger and stronger. It is the prerogative of artistes to determine the disposition of their intellectual property including licensing and selling, yet pirates have been allowed to illegally penetrate our streets with illegal material. What can be done to stop this scourge?
In the past, cattle rustlers used to get away scot-free when caught stealing cows until a law was put in place giving a minimum of nine years imprisonment for anyone found guilty of such a crime.
Now cattle rustling is no longer a big problem in Zimbabwe. Can we not do the same with music pirates, who are in fact committing crimes by stealing others’ intellectual property?
The Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act has no provision for harsh sentences against those who infringe on others’ copyright.
Parliamentarians should revisit this law and impose stiffer punishment on music pirates. On the whole, the society’s attitude towards music in general must change.
The public needs to learn that this is how the rightful owners of this music earn a living and that must be respected.
They also need to know that buying music from the streets is one way of killing the music industry. We are creating an industry and jobs in the creative arts. If this is given enough respect those with talents should not see it as a waste of time but as a career for life. How then can we develop this industry if the attitude is that people should not buy music from record shops because it is too expensive?
Last year, the British research firm, Human Capital, surveyed 1 000 people between the ages of 15 and 24 on their attitudes towards music. The results were disturbing, if not surprising. This was their statement in conclusion: “For this generation, free music is prevalent, easily reached, and largely guilt-free,” the survey report concluded. In fact, 61 percent of respondents said they didn’t think they should have to pay for the music they listen to, a number that rose to 69 percent among 15-19-year-olds. Some even had the cheek to say that music is as good as the air that they breathe and should not be paid for as it should flow freely.
Attitudes like that suggest why music sales continue to fall, dropping 18 percent from 2010 to 2011 worldwide, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. But music piracy represents more than just an economic issue; it’s also an ethical issue. And it’s one that goes beyond the Top 40. After all, if you get your music free, why not get your school certificates free, too?
One University of Zimbabwe lecturer who has a lot of experience in intellectual property had this to say: “We get students in class who don’t see any problem taking something from a website, putting it in a paper, and not attributing it to its original source,” he says. “It’s mind-boggling! Think of a situation where one student steals your work in class which you have spent two hours working on, takes it and copies it in 10 minutes, then submits it to the teacher for marking.
The marks which that student gets are fake as the student does not have an input into the work. When you discover that your work has been stolen, you feel aggrieved and end up writing songs such as ‘Batai Munhu’ or ‘Sean Timba’”, he says. This is similar to what the music pirates are doing and should be stopped.
Fortunately, the University of Zimbabwe has introduced a device known as Ephorus Anti-Plagiarism Test, a system which tests all students’ assignments in order to determine whether they have been plagiarised or not. If plagiarism has taken place, the lecturer will not bother to mark the assignment and the student automatically fails. Technicians are still busy working on anti-piracy devices for music and until that is achieved, the battle against music piracy will continue.
Part of the problem lies in the Internet’s free-for-all nature, where users get all sorts of content free — even information from newspapers that they would have to pay for in the real world. Then there are the complexities of copyright law. If you buy an album on iTunes, you can burn it to a CD for your own use. However, if you buy a CD and lose it, you can’t legally download the album without paying for it a second time.
Adults usually can navigate such distinctions, but adolescents can’t. They’re a group that looks at the world as very black and white; they don’t see grey. And the way people who can’t see grey deal with grey is that they force it into their black-and-white world, even if it’s incorrect. So how can we teach the public ethical behaviour related to music downloading?
One way: Set a good example. When in your car, for example, only play genuine (not fake) CDs that you have purchased from shops. The quality of original CDs is usually better than that of CDs from the street corner. If you play CDs that you have burned — even if they are legal — one may not recognise the difference between those and the pirated CDs.
Also, try talking about the issue at your workplace and other settings.
Piracy relates to the concept of honour, but it also relates to bravery. Technology makes it easier to be dishonourable in some ways. Therefore, you have to have more courage to act honourably.
There is an extensive list of literature on music piracy but in my mind, the best solution to ending music piracy, is to educate the public on why this is an evil trade similar to the illegal trade in rhino horns or elephant tusks. Throughout the world, artistes are complaining about piracy. Businesses such as HMV and Virgin Records
in the UK and USA have closed down as a result.
How then can artistes survive in this harsh environment? Statements from artistes on the negative impact of piracy are documented weekly in various media forums. This shows how this illegal trade has affected even the greatest musical acts on earth.
Legendary opera star and tenor Luciano Pavarotti said it well: “Artistes and composers — particularly the younger ones — will not stand a chance of creating music in the future if their recordings are simply stolen in this way.”
In other words, if this practice continues, nobody will be interested in becoming a musician in future, simply because the business does not make any money for the musician but for the pirates.
The current conflict between the recording industry and a portion of its customers who are involved in illicit copying of music files arose from innovations involving the compression and electronic distribution of files over the internet.
These are some of the challenges faced by the recording industry, as we examine some of the ethical issues that arise in various industry and consumer responses to the opportunities and threats presented by these innovations.
There are several risks associated with responses that threaten further innovation, ultimately reducing the chances of finding solutions that hold appeal for all parties.
Meanwhile, the struggle to stop music piracy continues!
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