Information Technology Cloud: Internet Security- Downloading Music off the Internet

Today, most people have downloaded music off of the Internet. Not only is it convenient, but it is also fun and very inexpensive. In the past, if you liked a song you either had to wait until it came on the radio to record it or you had to go out and buy the entire album. Not only was this expensive, but it could be a hassle, too, if it was the only song off of the album that you wanted.

Downloading music, however, costs less than $1 per song in most cases. It also downloads quickly and you can burn it on a CD for your home or vehicle. However, downloading music off the internet comes with internet security risks as well.

When a peer to peer (P2P) site is used, each person's computer acts as a host for a song or download. After installing software, a person can decide if they want to only download from other people or let other people also get into their computer and download from them.

Obviously things like this can cause problems where internet security is concerned. By letting other people into your computer to download music, other things on your computer are also at risk from being taken as well. This is especially true if a good hacker gets in control of your computer. Files might be stolen, or deleted, or a virus can get into your computer and infect it, causing you to lose everything. Not really worth it for a couple of free songs. There is another problem with downloading music in this way as well. Music is copyrighted. When you download it without the artist's consent, you are basically stealing. It is punishable bylaw. You have probably heard of pirated music or pirated movies before.

A common argument is that artists are already rich and downloading a couple of songs shouldn't matter. However, it does matter. Artists, by the way, don't really make that much money off of theirCDs. For a $13 CD, some of the profit goes to the songwriter, some to the record company, some
to the musicians that played on the album, some to the distribution, and some to the record store that sold it. Unless the artist was also the songwriter, they are getting
a very low profit, usually only a dollar or so.

If you are downloading music, have a good anti-virus software program available, as well asa strong firewall. This will protect your computer, but not your rights if you get sued.