Information Literacy

Is downloading music for free the moral equivalent to theft? 1

Is downloading music for free the moral equivalent to theft?

Marshall University

Dr. Harold Blanco

FYS 100

June 22, 2015

Callie Marcum

Jordan Leonard

Bobby Midkiff

Abstract


Illegally downloading music is a controversial discussion in the U.S. in today’s world. Many

people are on the fence about this issue, some want to fight it or they are in agreement with it.

Scholarly information was contrasted with non-scholarly information in order to give our group

an understanding of what reliable information is. Scholarly information is used in scientific

research and non-scholarly information is commonly found in the media. Both types of

information were used to research the topic. The effects of music piracy on music companies’

profits was first researched, along with how music companies are cracking down on piracy. The

morality of the issue was further investigated by researching the “anticipated guilt,” or how

guilty the downloaders felt before illegally downloading music, and by measuring the ethical

concern the downloaders had in general. Music companies lose billions of dollars annually and

the fight against music piracy has increased. Illegal music downloaders were found to have low

anticipated guilt because they do not believe they are breaking a law. Downloaders also had less

ethical concern or moral convictions in general. This paper taught us how to find reliable

information online and the importance of finding reliable information.

I. Reliable information can be found in journals by searching on Marshall databases or by

browsing trustworthy sites. You can differentiate reliable information from non-reliable

information by looking for the lack of ads in a website, the presence of a bibliography, a lack of


bias in the writing, and seeing if the work is published and if a trustworthy organization has

written the work.

Non-scholarly information is commonly found in popular commercials and in trade

groups, while scholarly information is found in academic institutions and professional

associations. Non-scholarly information is not cited and does not include bibliographies, while

scholarly information does include bibliographies. Although non-scholarly information has brief

articles, lasting on average 1-7 pages, scholarly information has longer articles, lasting over 5

pages. Scholarly information uses technical language with writing focused on a specific area.

Non-scholarly information writes to a wider audience and employs less technical use of words.

Scholarly information is more myopic in the topics of its writings and describes information in

more detail than non-scholarly does.

Scholarly information is peer reviewed, meaning an editorial board has read and edited

the work. Non-scholarly information lacks a public editing system, and is therefore more prone

to error and bias. Writers of scholarly information include freelancers and employees of the

publication, but writers of non-scholarly information include researchers, professionals, and

commercial publishers. A writer of non-scholarly information therefore could be a dilettante, but

a scholarly writer will be specialized in the field of his writing.

Non-scholarly information is used to entertain or inform the general public, while

scholarly information shares research and ideas. Examples of non-scholarly information include

editorials such as Rolling Stone, news channels such as CNN, and bloggers. An example of

scholarly information would be a researcher writing in a scientific journal. Scholarly information

does not include advertisements while non-scholarly does include advertisements.


II. The music industry is facing many problems in the age of the internet. It is losing money

to illegal downloading that would normally benefit the label, artist, publisher, and many other

entities that would profit from the sale of the artist’s work. As of 2010, it is estimated that 95%

of music today is pirated (Sheehan, 2012). This is a major problem in the United States as the

estimated loss of revenue is 3.7 billion dollars annually (Sheehan, 2012). The piracy of music has

an impact on a large portion of the population. The majority of online piracy comes from the

younger generation of music listeners. It is said that this may be because youths have less of an

attachment to the legal and ethical aspects of music consumption (Weijters, 2014). While

congress has trouble deciding how to regulate how media is consumed on the web, music

industry leaders are taking actions into their own hands by working with internet providers to

find music pirates (Clemmitt, 2012). I was able to find this information using the popular

databases provided by Marshall University libraries. I found the first two articles using the

academic search primer. I checked scholarly sources and found a few articles that provided a

wealth of information on the subject of music downloading and the ethics of downloading music.

They came from journals that are peer reviewed experts who are respected in their fields. The

last reference I found was in the CQ Researcher in the reference databases of Marshall’s library.

I found an article that mentions music downloading, but the main focus was on Internet

regulation. It was an interesting read on how music downloading has spurred the wave of debate

for internet regulation.

III. Using the summon feature I searched the Marshall University library for a book on music

downloading. I found several books on the first page that covered the topic. The first one in the

search fit the topic perfectly. It was a book called “Music Piracy and Crime Theory” written by

Sameer Hinduja (2006). The book is about theories on why people view criminal activity


differently in the digital age and why that would be the case. The book references several

research methods that will be analyzed later on in the book to try and figure out why society

currently views the theft of intellectual property in such a way. It will also try and figure out

methods that can combat this current trend in behavior (Hinduja, 2006).

This book was written to inform the reader of current trends in music and criminal

activity on the Internet. The book also brings up scientific research done on the subject from

several sources and gives an example of how those theories would explain ways of cause and

effect (Hinduja, 2006). Music Piracy and Crime Theory was published by LFB Scholarly

Publishing LLC in 2006 (Hinduja, 2006). LFB Scholarly Publishing is a company that offers

books and articles in targeted fields in the social sciences. They are generally a focused series

and refereed by senior scholars (June, 2015).

The book looks like it’s straightforward in its analysis. It starts with a brief overview of

the subject going to be covered. Vital information on what music law is and how it pertains to

the Internet is presented to the reader. The information is explained in various levels of the

industry. It then gives an overview of the theories presented to discuss the topic. From there it

gives the results of the studies that used specific theories in their hypothesis. It gives implications

of the research and what information was gained and how it can be potentially used (Hinduja,

2006).

The book was published in 2006, which is roughly nine years ago. I would say more

research has been done on the theories presented and further information has been gain as

technologies have changed since the time of publishing. I would say some of it is still valid, but

some current music platforms were non-existent when this book was written.


Sameer Hinduja is an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University and has published

several books and articles relating to criminal theory and criminal justice. He is specialized in

Internet safety, use of technology by children and adolescents, cyberbullying, social networking,

online privacy, ethics and information technology, and cybercrime (Hinduja. 2015). He received

his Ph.D. in criminal justice from Michigan State University (Hinduja, 2015).

The bibliography page is very extensive in the book. It is sorted into alphabetical order

and twenty-one pages in length. The book is very relevant to the research paper that we are

presenting as a group. It discusses the foundations and general principles of music downloading

and intellectual property theft. It has vast coverage on the issues in our topic. It looks at them

through a scientific standpoint and relates modern sociological theories to the issues of music

downloading. It takes a scholarly standpoint on the subject and covers it following the scientific

method.

The audience for this book is people with an interest in the subject. I would not say this is

for the casual reader. This is a scholarly published book that is for students, specialists in the

profession, and scholars. It has a vast about of scientific information that would not be for the

general reader. It is to inform people who are interested in the topic and for others already in the

field. The book also includes charts and graphs that are clear and professional. They are cited and

contain a bibliography entry in the back of the book to back up the information provided

(Hinduja, 2006).

IV. The first journal article was titled, “The Immorality of Illegal Downloading: The Role of

Anticipated Guilt and General Emotions.” This article tested a group of students’ “anticipated

guilt,” or how guilty they felt before illegally downloading music. The students took an online

survey asking if they had downloaded illegally before and if they thought the act was moral or


immoral. The results showed that those who had “anticipated guilt” and felt guilty about

breaking the law were less likely to download illegally than those who saw no issue in it. It

showed that those who faced a negative emotion when downloading music chose not to do it

again, while those who did not have a negative emotion chose to download again (Wang,

McClung 2011).

This article was written by Xiao Wang, a professor in communication studies at

Rochester Institute of Technology, and by Steven McClung, a professor of communication

studies at Mercer University (Wang, McClung 2011). Both authors had been researching

cognition and ethics since 2010 (R.I.T. 2015) and are specialized in researching mental behaviors

(McClung 2010). The two institutions are credible. This article’s purpose was to predict future

occurrences of illegal downloaders and to provide insight into the role of emotions on

downloading. A bibliography was included which cited 12 articles (Wang, McClung 2011).

The article was published by Elsevier and was peer reviewed (Wang,McClung 2011). I

know this because of the search options I chose when searching for the article. This article is

factual does not contain bias. The work was published in September 2011. It is appropriate

because it shows that those who do download music illegally are less likely to feel guilty about

breaking a law because they do not see it as a crime (Wang, McClung 2011). This leads to a

cogent implication that illegal music downloaders have no moral issue with downloading.

The second article was, “Money for Nothing and Hits for free: The Ethics of

Downloading Music from Peer-to-Peer Web Sites.” This study tried to find a correlation between

a person’s ethics and illegally downloading music. The results showed that those who

downloaded music illegally had lower ethical concern than those who did not, making those who

download illegally less concerned about the morality of doing so. Downloaders were also more


likely to agree that record companies make too much money and that downloading illegally will

not harm the musicians (Levin, Dato-on, Rhee 2004). The study also showed that downloaders

purchased more CDs than non-downloaders and showed that downloading music illegally does

not reduce the willingness of the downloader to purchase CDs. The students also felt that

downloading music made amends for the company's excessive prices. Each test asked whether

the students felt that there was harm being done to the companies, if the musicians would benefit

from it, and if they believed the companies were deceptive in their marketing tactics (Levin,

Dato-on, Rhee 2004).

This article was written by Aron Levin, professor of statistics, Mary Dato-on, professor

of marketing, and Kenneth Rhee professor of management. All three are qualified due to the

roles they played in the study and in their knowledge and experience. Levin has a PhD in

marketing (Northern Kentucky University 2015), Dato-on has a specialty in mental health and

behavioral studies (Sage Publications 2015), and Rhee has a specialty in adult behavioral

development (Northern Kentucky University 2015). The organization was Northern Kentucky

University, which is a credible institution. This study was altruistic because it was written to

challenge music companies to change their marketing techniques in order to appeal to illegal

music downloaders (Levin, Dato-on, Rhee 2004). The article includes a bibliography. This is a

peer-reviewed work and there is no bias in the writing. The article was written in 2004, but the

findings on the downloader’s morals are still relevant to the illegal music downloaders of today.

Students that illegally downloaded music justified doing so by believing that music companies

can remain financially stable even with their illegal downloads (Levin, Dato-on, Rhee 2004).

This article was important because it shows that personal ethics played a role in deciding to

illegally download music.


V. Marshall University’s library can be a huge money saver for those who attend the school

or affiliated with the school such as: faculty or some other form of staff. The library can help

you save money by allowing you to use the databases and the resources they offer. Some

resources they offer that can be helpful are: databases, IDS, and E-Z borrow all for free. These

sources are helpful because you can go to multiple places to find information within the

databases. Depending on your topic you are able to search based on that or even go to another

database to search for your answer. No matter which database you use, you can type in a

keyword and all things related to this topic appear and you can even filter your results. These

results can be based upon peer review or just an article are some examples. Some databases have

the most up to date information out there or some can have peer review journals, which are also

helpful. These peer review journals are helpful in the sense that they have been written by

people who know what they are talking about and it has factual information. If you are looking

for a book that Marshall may not have you can go to E-Z borrow and get it sent to you for free,

this is also something you can only do if you are affiliated with the school. If E-Z borrow does

not have this book you are looking for there is another alternative, IDS. IDS is another free

resource used to look for books that Marshall may not have, but can get for you. If you needed

information for research or for any reason and you were not a student or affiliated with the

university, you would not be permitted to look at this information. In result you would have to

pay hundreds or maybe thousands of dollars to access one of these resources. Being a student,

you are able to access all of this instead of having to go somewhere else and pay money for all of

this information so, this way is more affordable. With all of these resources available to you it

does help you to make better grades. You are able to learn more, get the right information from

the right place and you can cite your work properly. This assignment has changed my outlook


on academic research because, I did not know there were so many other resources out there

besides Google. You can find a lot more information that is factual and has been written by your

peers or maybe people that specialize in this field. So in result you are getting the latest and best

information out there possible which will make your paper or research, even better. This

assignment has changed my mind on downloading free music because, it is illegal and takes

money away from the people who make this music. Also, downloading music for free is not

worth getting sued and fined a bunch of money for some songs you stole.

References

SHEEHAN, B., TSAO, J., & POKRYWCZYNSKI, J. (2012). Stop the Music!. Journal Of

Advertising Research, 52(3), 309-321. doi:10.2501/JAR-52-3-309-321 S

Weijters, B., Goedertier, F., & Verstreken, S. (2014). Online Music Consumption in Today's

Technological Context: Putting the Influence of Ethics in Perspective. Journal of Business

Ethics, 124(4), 537-550. doi:10.1007/s10551-013-1892-y

Clemmitt, M. (2012, April 13). Internet regulation. CQ Researcher, 22, 325-348. Retrieved from

http://library.cqpress.com/

Hinduja, S. (2006). Music Piracy and Crime Theory. New York: LFB Scholarly Pub. LLC.

(June 2015). Zoom Company Information, Retrieved from

www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic


Hinduja, S. (n.d.). . Retrieved from

http://porter.schools.pwcs.edu/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/494234/File/Dr.pdf

Wang, X., & Mcclung, S. (n.d.). The immorality of illegal downloading: The role of anticipated guilt and

general emotions. Computers in Human Behavior, 153-159.

Levin, A., Dato-on, M., & Rhee, K. MONEY FOR NOTHING AND HITS FOR FREE: THE ETHICS OF

DOWNLOADING MUSIC FROM PEER TO-PEER WEB SITES, 48-57.

Rochester Institute of Technology (2015), Referenced from

https://www.rit.edu/cla/communication/faculty-staff/xiao-wang

McClung, S. (2010) Referenced from http://faculty.mercer.edu/mcclung_sr/vita.pdf

Northern Kentucky University (2015) Referenced from

http://cob.nku.edu/departments/mesb/people/levin.html

http://cob.nku.edu/departments/management/people/kennethrhee.html

Sage Publications (2015) Referenced from http://www.sagepub.com/authorDetails.nav?

contribId=662736

(n.d.). In Marshall University Library . Retrieved June 17, 2015, from http://www.marshall.edu/library/

Art & Photos

Information Literacy