Music's Value

 

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I believe that music does have inherent value. Music is not made or written in a vacuum. A song is written based on personal experiences and feelings that other people can relate to. While no one can relate to every song out there, everyone knows at least one song that really speaks to them. The time the song was written or popular doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter if that song was ever popular because music can have no real value. Putting a price tag on music is like putting a price tag on emotions or personal experiences. Though because music is so universal and can speak to so many people, who does it belong to? I believe that a song really belongs to anyone that can relate to it or have some sort of personal attachment to it. While the artist should be credited for writing and composing the song, once the artist put that song out there for everyone to listen to, it doesn't belong to only him or her anymore. It now belongs to anyone that hears it.

Of course this now deals with a current issue of how much should people pay for a song. In this current day and age where everything is electronic and digital, the issue of people illegally downloading free music has come up. I personally don't think music should have a price and that all songs, regardless of popularity, should be free to the public. Yet at the same time, music is also a profession and a livelihood for the artists that give us all these songs. At the same time artists don't always get paid for the songs we buy online off ITunes or other digital music stores. A good amount of the time artists sell the rights to their songs to companies, producers, or other organizations of that sort. I personally believe that an artist should be the only one to have rights to their work and be rewarded for it if their song becomes popular instead of just the producers. And even if the singer or band do get paid for songs bought online, this still will not stop the illegal distribution of music that happens digitally. With today's technology, nothing can be done to prevent it. People will always find a way to distribute and obtain free music. I honestly think it shouldn't even be illegal. In a sense, it is the same as burning your friend's CD or listening to a song on the radio or YouTube. There are ways to legally listen to music for free, so why should downloading the songs for free be illegal? Yes, the artist responsible for the work should be credited for their songs, but there are other ways to obtain profit from their music from selling CDs to live performances. This is a controversial topic and at times I don't even know where I stand. I download all my music for free illegally and I don't think I will ever stop to think twice about it. It has become a natural action with no guilt attached to it. People who download free music most of the time don't even see it as them stealing, at least I don't. It is not seen on the same level as stealing a physical object from a physical store. Music isn't just some good or object of material value, it is an expression of emotions and entertainment. So stealing music isn't really seen as stealing at all sometimes. I don't know exactly where I stand because while I feel the artists should be paid for their songs, as a consumer I feel that I shouldn't have to pay for music, especially when you can easily listen to music legally for free.