Music piracy and illegal sharing: are artists being affected?

This essay analyzes the impact that musical piracy and illegal downloads haveon singers and song writers. Arguments suggest that even though singers seea direct affectation on their income from royalties (CD sales), these lossesare compensated with the sales of their own brand items, concert tickets andadvertising contracts.On the other hand, for song writers, piracy does not affect their financesdirectly, but it does more on motivational terms. The theoretical analysis isbased on the income/outcome function as well as on the Cobb-Douglasproduction function type, which includes piracy as a negative external factor.