• Copyright
In relation to online music stores, copyright is a form of legal protection for music and images (eg. album covers). The copyright laws provides the artist with legal rights to their original works. There are several copyright issues involved with online music stores. It is illegal for such databases to distribute music without the permission of the owner of the copyrighted sound recordings. Online music stores need a license from the record labels (of the songs) to legally distribute music and make it available for customers to download the songs. Also, there are issues involved with the album covers that are included in the purchase of a song/album. Ultimately, an online music store has to make it their responsibility to respect the rights of the copyright holders. They can do this by properly asking for permission to distribute their images and music and/or get approval from the record labels.
• Fair Pricing
Online music stores need to consider what they price their songs. It is one of their ethical responsibilities to ensure that the price that they are charging for the songs are fair. Online music stores should not take advantage of the fact that most people are purchasing their music online. They should make their prices reasonable and fair in order to avoid legal issues that may stem from it. This is important because if the songs were overpriced, customers may be discouraged from legally purchasing their music online. Instead, they may resort to illegal methods of obtaining music like stealing music from music sharing programs, etc. Also, this is disadvantageous for the copyright holders who gave permission for the distribution of their work. It is detrimental because people would not buy their music. It may also tarnish their reputations because people may think that the artists are overpricing their songs and are taking advantage of their listeners. The issue of fair pricing needs to be considered when implementing this database because it may potentially prevent future legal issues involving online distribution of music.
No comments:
Post a Comment