Is Downloading Theft?

[Note - this is an archived version of the original posting from 04:10 AM EDT, Apr 24 2003]

A Canadian survey shows that while baby boomers generally agree that unauthorized downloads of Internet content are theft, their younger Generation X and Y counterparts view the practice as much more acceptable.

Boomers are in their 40's through mid 50's; Gen X covers approximately age 24 to 40; and Gen Y is the youngest, at age 12 to 24. I don't know what they call 10 year olds.

55% of boomers say that downloading songs is "theft", while only 31% of Gen Y agrees. Similar discrepancies exist for downloading movies or for making copies of computer software.

My feeling is that the situation we have today is very nice, but it can't last. Today we can download all kinds of music for free. But there are still huge amounts of new music being produced, new artists and new talent coming along all the time. We get the benefits of a very expensive and elaborate system of music production and promotion without having to pay for it.

What will happen if free downloads continue to grow in popularity, so that the record business can no longer make money? People's views on this question seem to depend closely on whether they think it is OK to download music. Those who accept it (like the Gen Y'ers above) seem to think that it won't make much difference if music companies go out of business, that people will continue to make music just for the love of it. Plus, new technology will make it even easier to create professional sounding albums. You won't need an expensive music producer, you can get just as good results with your computer.

Those who oppose downloads tend to believe that if music companies can no longer get paid, there won't be much new music being produced. And similar reasoning applies to other forms of content.

It sure would be nice if we could run an experiment and see which side is right.