Illegal Downloads

Downloading music. It seems as though CD's are on the verge of becoming obsolete. I can't really image a world where every song you own is only on your computer and not on a CD, but that is the world I will soon be living in. People download mostly all of there music, and a lot of them are downloading it illegally.

Although I have never taken part in downloading music illegally, I am almost positive that some of the music on my Ipod was never bought. My music comes from someone else's computer. My question is how unethical do you feel downloading music illegally to be? Some would say that it is illegal, so it is clearly unethical. But this is not so in all cases of the law. It is wrong to not pay the artist for the music they produce. I have heard many people argue that they make so much money that they don't need me spending a dollar on a song. I have also heard people argue that they wouldn't listen to the songs if they had to buy them, thus not becoming fans of the artist.

These are all valid arguments, but do they really make a case for making illegal downloads ethical. I think that it is unethical. Ethics is about the only thing stopping the whole world from downloading illegally.

Does the fact that so many people illegally download music make it more ethical or just more acceptable? It makes me feel like it is not unethical. If it wasn't for all of those commercials urging you not to illegally download, I wouldn't even think about the ethics, I would just assume it is something that happened. Check out this article about the percentage of illegal downloads. Astonishing.

Do you download illegally? Take a bite.