A man can choose between downloading an album for free, with the click of a button, or going to a music store and paying $15 for the same album, running the risk of not finding that album at all. What will he choose? In 1999, Sean Parker, John Fanning, and Shawn Fanning developed a website called "Napster" that first introduced us to the most prominent aspect of music piracy in the modern world, called the Internet. Free music was shared through the internet and technology, and I firmly believe this was the beginning of the still growing effects of music piracy. Music piracy can be defined as the copying and distribution of copies of a piece of music for which the composer, recording artist or record company holding the copyright has not given consent. It is considered a form of copyright infringement, which makes it a crime. (Siwek) Therefore, music piracy is considered theft. The 20th and 21st centuries have witnessed numerous controversies over copyright, ethics, and the treatment of music piracy. These controversies have led to the rise of a worldwide debate on the topic of music piracy, but no one has managed to find a concrete solution to the problem. The Internet has made illegal music so easy and accessible, making the Internet one of the main reasons why CDs are slowly becoming obsolete. I believe the problem is not free music, but people's mentality. Music piracy, with the help of technology, is increasing at rampant and uncontrollable rates, and will continue to do so as long as the technology exists, and the only way the problem of music piracy can be addressed is by working around the problem, rather than fighting it. against it. Napster rapidly grew in popularity and has been used by mill...... middle of paper ......September 16, 2012. Web. April 28, 2014. .Palis, Courteney, and Catharine Smith. "Lady Gaga, Jack White, Norah Jones and more: 10 musicians are okay with piracy and illegal file sharing." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, February 6, 2012. Web..Resnikoff, Paul. “16 Artists Now Speaking Out Against Streaming…” 16 Artists Now Speaking Out Against Streaming Comments. Digital Music News, December 2, 2013. Web. April 28, 2014. .Siwek, Stephen E. The True Cost of Audio Recording Piracy to the US Economy (2007) Print.VOLMERS, ERIC. "Pros and cons of making music available on the Web, artists say." Documentation: C.4. February 18, 2004 2004. Print.Zentner, Alejandro. “Measuring the effect of online music piracy on music sales.” Diss. University of Chicago.