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Ethics of Music Downloading and Sharing

Educate yourself about the ethics of music downloading and sharing. A good place to start is the MusicUnited.org web site. This educational site was created by MusicUnited, a consortium of songwriters, recording artists, record companies, musicians and the Recording Industry Association of America.

See what the creative artists have to say about illegal copying and sharing of music: http://musicunited.org/3_artists.html.

Legal Issues

Educate yourself about the legal consequences of music downloading and sharing:
~ http://musicunited.org/2_thelaw.html

University of Northern Colorado has policies regarding prohibited uses of the University’s network:
~ http://www.unco.edu/it/policies/computingprocedures.html

Do the Right Thing: Legal Alternatives

When is it okay to copy? MusicUnited has a helpful FAQ: http://musicunited.org/7_faq.html.

The best course of action is to obtain your music from legal sites. Here are a couple of free and legal sites: 
~ http://music.download.com/
~ http://www.betterpropaganda.com/

Here’s a list of legal online music sources:
~ http://musicunited.org/6_legalsites.html.

Some advocacy groups are not happy with the current laws regarding peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing and are working to change them. One example is the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
~ http://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/.

Music Copyright for Educational Purposes

If you are interested in guidelines regarding copyright law and music education, see the Music Education Copyright Center Web site sponsored by the National Association for Music Education (MENC).