Music piracy is the act of copying and distributing of copies of a piece of music for which the composer, recording artist, or copyright-holding record company did not give approval. In Malaysia, the music piracy activities have become main issues hence there are many people who are downloading free music and video from the internet. This common practice eliminates compensation and royalties’ for musicians, filmmakers, recording artists and producers, who deserve to be paid for their efforts.
Due to the various negative impacts on music piracy, the ways to prevent music piracy are filtering the file-sharing networks, distributing copyrighted material and reinforcing the law. One way to prevent music piracy is filtering the file-sharing networks. Many people are downloading music and video from the unauthorized website available in the internet. These are several websites that allowing users to duplicate such as shared. Com, numskull. Com, Beamed. Com and others. This situation occurs as the lack of authority’s workers on monitoring and ensuring the security of state website.
According to Adam (2009) Recording Industry of Malaysia (RIM) feels that the government should track down website operators that promote illegal music download. In this case, the government must play an important role of blocking and filtering any suspicious website that allow file-sharing to others. In general, if the authorities managed to detect illegal websites, the best ways that they can do are demolished those websites and imposing punishment by fine. Aside from that, to prevent music piracy is by distributing copyrighted material.
The copyrighted is a legal concept, endorsed by governments, that allowances the creator of an original work exclusive right to its use and distribution. Without the distribution of copyright on music the owners may suffer a great loss from the sale of their songs. In this case, Adam (2009) indicates that music companies should respond to music piracy by installing programmed that prevent duplication such as anti- piracy programmed. Therefore, manufacturers or publishers can use Digital Rights Management (DRUM) to control duplicating activities.
For instance, we can see that how Apple managed their software to prevent piracy with the tunes which was designed to prevent buyers from reformatting songs into MPH format and making copies of these files and thus stopping them from making these files available on sharing file-sharing networks. All in all, the publisher need to think twice before decided to publish their song without the distribution of copyrighted material on their music Another way to prevent music piracy is reinforcing the law.
As we already know, he governments have done an excellent work to prevent the spread of pornographic websites on the internet. On the other hand, why can they do the same with websites or racketeers that promote illegal music download? The governments should be strict By eliminable enforcement officers can be done to arrest the fraudsters. According to Ling (2009) several of the racketeers are freely duplicating CDC and selling them at low prices from the back of the vans or makeshift stalls. By multiplying the numbers of enforcement officers the music piracy activities can be decrease.
Governments can also tightening the law by implement severe punishment to the guilty. For example, the authorities must accuse the criminals by a high fine and a long Jail term in order to show how important it is the illegal of music piracy in Malaysia. In short, governments play as a main role to stop the music piracy in Malaysia. In a nutshell, it is individual, society and authorities Job to fight against music piracy. Thus, filtering the file-network sharing, distributing copyrighted material and reinforcing the law are the ways to prevent music piracy in Malaysia.
