Contact the various performing rights societies to get information on the costs involved. With losses amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in displaced sales every year, piracy hits everyone who loves music. Consumers are the ultimate victims of sound recording piracy, because industry-wide losses due to piracy can drive up the prices of legitimate recordings. In addition, illegal recordings are often poor in quality and, of course, non-returnable. Finally, the public suffers because piracy deprives songwriters and performers of their livelihood, and, without a steady income, most would not have the same economic incentive to create new works.
Most musicians depend on royalties for their livelihood.
Many artists would not be able to create the music that the public loves and wants if their income is reduced, or eliminated, due to piracy. In addition, their reputations suffer when consumers unknowingly purchase poor quality copies of their works. Retailers and distributors lose sales to pirates because they can not compete with the low prices charged for cheaply produced illegal copies. Record companies are seriously affected by piracy. And it is precisely these profitable recordings that pirates copy.