21st Century Crime

The notion of piracy isn’t a new concept; John Philip Sousa challenged congress in 1906 when the law allowed manufacturers to sell and distribute phonographic records without paying composers. A composter himself, he was not only worried that he wouldn’t get the money and credit he deserved, he was worried that people wouldn’t play music with instruments anymore and would only rely on the technologies that could play and their would be no more such thing as amateur culture. The creation of popular culture started with the phonograph; people were not listening to their favorite artists over and over again and appreciating what they were doing. These new technologies would lead our country to be less democratized in a music aspect and our music was becoming a read/only culture instead of a read/write culture like before. The good thing about the start of the music industry is that it would create jobs and produce icons, as we know it. Before the 21^st century, the technology to copy the music and distribute it was impossible. Now, the technology to copy and send it over the Internet is what everyone does and it is killing the music business. We have become part of a free culture society, which is good in the way where we can be exposed to more music and influences, but the music business is losing more and more money. Itunes has been created to stop this, along with other programs to save the music. Before this though, companies like sony were suing fans for stealing music. Is this fair and does the punishment fit the crime?