Copyright Laws

I learned a lot about copyright laws in class.  I was especially interested in how copyright laws apply to downloading  music from the internet.  I never realized how serious this was or how easy it is to break the law. Using any kind of music that you don't pay for is illegal, you have to at least pay a subscription fee for it to be legal. According to the RIAA Web site: “global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings, and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues”  There is debate among musicians about whether online downloading should be illegal or not.  Supporters of the laws think that online downloading makes them lose money and the other side thinks that online downloading gives them more exposure.