Illegal Downloads

Unfortunately, in todays society, artist are having to work hard to insure their music is not being stolen from them. Artist work hard to create an album for the world to hear, and then are not seeing the benefits. Instead of society paying for their songs, they are stealing them. After our class, I thought of three ways to stop illegal downloads. 1. The first thing I think needs to happen is stricter laws. I have multiple friends who illegally download songs, and have never been caught. If the music and free, easy to get, and you don't get caught getting it for free, then why would you pay. I think the government needs to pay close attention to illegal downloads. Even if someone steals $5.00 worth of music, they need to be fined. I also think the government needs to completely shut down website that allow illegal downloads. 2. The second thing I think should happen is lower prices. If you walk around Walmart and look at how much an actual CD cost, they are pretty cheap. So why would someone steal songs if they can buy the whole CD for like $12.00. I think it is because people don't want a whole CD, they may only want one or two songs. Individually buying a song iTunes is around $1.29 today, which use to be $.99. With the economic downturn, I think people just refused to pay that price. I think artist should reduced the price of online/virtual CDs and individual songs. I think there should also be deals, they need to make the price attractive for consumers. 3. The last thing I think the government can do to control illegal downloads is to stop putting music on the internet. When Taylor Swift's album came out, 1989, at first you could find her songs on YouTube and Spotify, and then she got smart and removed all of her songs off the Internet. This way, people had to buy her songs if they wanted to listen to it. Taylor took a stand against people stealing her music. If the songs are available to the public, then they can't get stolen.