James Delahunty
20 Aug 2005 19:44
Across the United States, increasing numbers of University students have access to music for free through legal services but why is it that many of these students continue to get their music from file sharing programs instead of their legal alternative? Let's not forget about the possible legal consequences while sharing music illegally on P2P networks and of course the threat of viruses or the spyware content of some of the worlds biggest used P2P software. So why are so many students actually sticking to P2P instead of their new free ways to listen to music?
The answers are actually quite easy and understandable. The main reason is because of the limitations that they face while taking advantage of the free music. In order to listen to the music, a lot of time students have to stay at desks and can’t just walk around and listen to it on a portable device like an iPod. That's because while these students are free to listen to the music, the 99c per track download charge applies when they want to be able to burn the music to CD or to store it on a portable device. Most of the copyrighted music on P2P networks has no limits on copying or what you store them on, and are in some cases, of higher quality.
Another reason would be selection. What if they can’t find the music they want and listen to it for free? Putting all legal issues aside, who could doubt that major P2P networks are not the best resource for finding music currently available to music downloaders all around the world? Even when you exclude the poisoned files put there by the entertainment industry, the numbers of MP3's are in the millions. It seems unlikely that any service like Napster or Real's Rhapsody will ever offer a free service for students that also permits them to burn the music onto CDs or store them on portable devices.
In the past, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has directly targeted university students in it's lawsuits. The organisation believes that it's an educational tool for the students.
Source:
Yahoo