Formal Debate

Topic: Downloading music and/or movie without permission is an example of theft and is immoral
Role: Prime minister
Side: Government

Research

In the United States of America, unauthorized redistribution, reproduction and adaptation of music is illegal. When people download music illegally, artists and technicians, along with record companies and music stores suffer financial losses. The Recording Industry Association of America and professionals in the music industry, therefore began filing lawsuits against people who download music illegally. They also conduct campaigns to spread awareness about the consequences of downloading music illegally. The unauthorized downloaders of music are subject to lawsuits as well as criminal penalties. The penalties can vary anywhere between $750 to $250,000. The penalties for downloading music illegally, can also be in the form of up to five years of imprisonment. They vary depending on the degree of copyright infringement.

 When downloading music, most of the consumers want to buy free mp3 files and they search for. However, many of them are illegal sites. Also, since nowadays, smart phones are very popular; there are free apps that can download music freely. According to digital times, online newspaper, says that association of producers of phonograms found 12 apps that are illegal downloading app.

Speech

Nowadays, most people have mp3 or smart phones for listening music and when the music is out, mp3 files are very popular. Do you know 4shared.com? It’s a free music download site and many consumers actually like it. However, this can be a very big obstacle in music industry.

 Hello ladies and Gentleman, and honorable judge, I am the prime minister and we are here to debate on the motion of this house believes that downloading music and/or movie without permission is an example of theft and is immoral. As the government, we strongly support this motion. Before I layout our arguments on why we support the motion, we would like to define the house as the world (because it is a worldwide issue), without permission as downloading freely instead of downloading with legal steps. Now I would lay out the background of this debate. After the 1990s, copying music became easier than before because of development of mp3 and spread of internet. With only one click of music lovers, the music can be copied. This might’ve been good news to the listener but fatal problem to the singers or artists and whether this can be theft of not became worldwide issue.

Primarily, the artist cannot make any profit and we might not be able to listen to good songs anymore. Do you know how much money it costs when a singer or group of singers make one album. At least 400 thousand dollars, and one of the famous artist Rihanna, according to npr site, used 2million dollar on just one song called man down. That is amazing number. Most albums cost from 5$ to 12$. If the people buy a lot, the artist may earn profit. But! Now the people prefer downloading on the websites, sometimes freely or sometimes with very small amount of money that will not return to the artist. If this continues and people download more and more music, the artist may not make profit and it might lead to bigger problems such as artists retiring or stop their job. Let’s say there is an artist. He is a fullime musician because he loves music. However, many people will download his music, for free and this can mean that music will not help with the income which means that he have to take up a job. So later, his talent and skills will be underdeveloped, and the songs he write will be not like before. This shows that downloading music without permission will lead to fewer good musicians. This is not just bad for the musician but also bad for us because we cannot listen to good music anymore.