Illegal Downloads

Downloading music from the internet has become a simple, fast and easy thing to do. The correct or legal way of going about it seems to be ignored by those who find it too costly. Illegal music downloads have reached an all time high, and a recent survey of high school students revealed an estimated 3.6 billion songs being downloaded per month. There are now endless possibilities available to the public where music can be downloaded for free and people are choosing to take this route even though it is illegal. iTunes is one of the most well known sites where music can be bought legally for just over 51 per track. So when it is this cheap why are people still going to alternative unauthorized sites? Or is the legal route still considered a costly way to go about it? If you think that copying music results in simply a slap on the wrist, think twice. Under government law, record companies are entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement but the law allows the jury to increase that to as much as $150,000 per song if it finds the infringements were deliberate. The music industry has threatened about 35,000 people with charges of copyright Infringement over the past decade. In recent months there have been more cases of music piracy heading to the courts. The industry estimates that more than a hundred of these cases remain unsettled in court, with fewer than 10 offenders actively arguing the case against them. The penalties for breaching the copyright act differ slightly depending upon whether the infringing is for commercial or private financial gain, with the latter…