There is a hidden - and high - cost to illegal downloading

So Richard Wilkinson (Letters, 1 June) thinks that all music should be available for download free and that only the "creators" need to be paid in some way. He seems to have forgotten the sound engineers, makers and sellers of musical instruments, recording studio owners, recording equipment makers, music teachers, designers and managers of download sites, database engineers, producers, arrangers... and of course the vast majority of musicians who are not themselves creators. The cost of distribution of music may have fallen dramatically (although it is still not close to zero, and many people do not have access to broadband) but the costs of production and of creation itself are still much the same as they were. David DixonOxford
The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property claims there is "huge confusion" about what is and is not legal (Cost to British economy of free downloads is revealed, 30 May). This confusion seems to be shared by Sabip, which reports that 1.3 million users were sharing files at midday on a weekend, yet fails to mention the fairly obvious fact that many of these downloads would have been perfectly legal.
"The new 50 megabytes-per-second broadband access can deliver ... the complete works of Charles Dickens in less than 10 minutes," reports the article, clearly giving the impression that such an activity would be in violation of copyright law, even though all of Dickens's work is in the public domain.Brad StevensLuton
Downloading music or video files is only one piece in the puzzle of online piracy. People may think its cool and easy to simply choose a new album or film and start downloading, however the consequences aren't so friendly. The online piracy issue is the UK's greatest threat to business software, video games, music, TV and film industries.
Intellectual property contributes £53bn to the UK economy. Around 8% of gross domestic product is down to IP, and 1.9 million people are employed in the creative industries. Yet still, people see software and all digital piracy as a victimless crime. Some 27% of the software used in UK businesses is illegal, equating to £1.4bn per annum of loss to the software industry.
Everyone should expect to be paid for the work they do in life. It is the same maxim if you are a plumber, teacher, filmmaker or software developer. Why would someone in the creative industries just create content for others to enjoy for free? John LovelockFederation Against Software Theft