Owning Music: A Thing of the Past

Everyone these days has an I-pod, MP3-player, or some sort of music-playing device that they use daily. People love music, and can't do without it. It's one of our society's most prized possessions. People will pay good money to see their favorite bands playing live in concert. However, few people actually own all the songs that they listen to. Now that we are living in the information era, it is more than easy to download any song you could possibly want to listen to for no cost whatsoever. This, of course, is highly illegal. Companies put a lot of capital into producing music that people listen to, and they expect to be paid for it. Though the likelihood is low for the average person, there are those who are prosecuted for the crime of stealing music. Apparently, even if you own a CD with a song on it, you cannot legally put that song on an MP3 player. In a recent case, a man was accused of creating unauthorized copies of music one would think he would have some right to. Though these kinds of cases are still somewhat prevalent today, I do not believe that it can persist much longer. As long as people have access to all the information that the internet provides, there is no way (that is currently known) to ensure that said information will be shared. I would not be surprised if, in the future, people did not own any CDs or legal MP3s at all. It's easy enough to have an entire library of music without buying anything today. It can only get easier as information technology progresses.