Read the rubric, the questions and the possible answers and find the key words. Do the reading task. Compare your answers with your partner.
Download now? Think twice
The music industry is recovering from years of falling sales when CDs were replaced by MP3s. Thanks to legal downloading, UK music sales rose from 101.5 million in 2008 to around 154 million in 2010. However, the industry still has a big problem. More than three quarters of music downloaded in Britain today is obtained illegally — 218 million worth, in fact. So, now, faced with a whole generation of young people who have only ever downloaded music, how can the authrities persuade people that music should be paid for?
The record companies argue that for good music to survive, the writes and performes need to profit from their work. Howerer, it seems the public and the record companies disagree as to how much income the artist and record companies deserve. The band Radiohead released their album In Rainbows online in 2008 and invited fans to pay whatever they thought it was worth rather than a set price. The average price paid was just 2.80, with three in five people paying nothing at all.
The American singer Tori Amos Likens downloading music without paying for it to shoplifting. She said in 2009: «Listening to a song is like a chocolate tasting. I can taste the chocolate, I can decide if I like it or not … but you don’t then take a box and put it in your bag. If you don’t support the chocolate producers you like, or the artists you like, then they’re not going to be able to continue.»
Politicians seem to share Amos’s opinion that illegal downloading is theft. In 2009, the French parlament created an agency to monitor illegal file sharing. Is also passed a law under which anyone who is caught sharing copyrighted material such as music receives a warning letter. If you are caught three times, you are cut off from the Internet. The Australian, New Zeland and British goverments have announced plans for similar legislation, but there have been protests about the proposals in all those countries. Two British Internet service providers have argued in court that they are not responsible for the traffic on theiir services and it’s unfair to expect them to take action against people who download illegally. In Ireland, meanwhile, a judge has ruled that people who download music illegally cannoot be cut off from the Internet.
One thing seems certain — there will be plenty more debate until harmony is restored between record companies goverments, performers and music fans.