For as long as there has been creative works being created, there has been piracy, even in the early 1900s when it was sheet music rather than recordings that were copied for illegal commercial exploitation (Napier-Bell, S. 2015).

Piracy affects several areas of the creative industries (publishing, music, films) and it affects different countries in different proportions. This paper will focus on the recorded music market in the UK and the US.

When Napster was developed, major record companies had recently ceased to sell singles (one-song CDs, often with one or two bonus tracks) but labels claimed the costs of releasing them were too high compared to sales.

Instead of spending U$2-4 dollars on a single, consumers were then forced to spend U$10-20 on a whole album in order to listen to one or two songs.

Suddenly, these consumers were given access to single tracks again. And for free. Instead of adjusting their business models and trying to develop a way to seize the momentum, record labels decided to spend a lot of money on lawsuits against file-sharers.

In the meantime, Apple and the iTunes Store turned the new “a la carte” sales method into thousands of iPods sold. The MP3 were merely a means to sell the hardware.