The Curious Case of Music Piracy
How it’s continuing to change the music landscape
For the longest time, access to music was limited in various parts of the world. Even when streaming services like Spotify were thriving, there were countries that were still deprived of listening to music at an affordable rate. Case in point, Spotify wasn’t available for over 80 countries including Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka until late 2020.
Enter pirated music.
Now pirated music isn’t anything new. It’s something that thrived well globally at one point. Anyone who remembers the Napster and Limewire days know what it was like trying to download a music track with the expectation that it won’t be packed with malware of some sort.
From Napster to Pirate Bay
Music piracy’s modern form was given life with the advent of the internet and digital media. Applications like Napster simplified the entire process of pirating music. The ability to simply exchange music files over a common free server without any regard for copyright laws made Napster a viral sensation peaking at 80 million users at one point. The service eventually shut down as artists like Dr. Dre and Metallica sued the company over the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
