IELTS Writing Task 2 essay with model answer

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task. Write about the following topic

Many films and music pieces are free on the internet. Is this a good or bad development? Discuss.

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.

Model Answer:

The growth of the Internet has resulted in numerous films and music pieces being available on many websites accessible to the public at no charge. Some are of the view that this is an advantageous development, whilst others believe the development is negative. I will explain both views below.

The easy availability of films and music pieces on the Internet at no cost is a positive change, as it can only fuel creative growth. Artists and the general public will be exposed to more genres, and this can improve acceptance of different forms of culture that can then be better understood or adopted. One illustration of this is the band Coldplay adopting Hindu chants in their latest music, a type of sound which originated in India, far from their home in the United Kingdom, that they had stumbled upon on the Internet. In addition, as numerous examples of the artforms on the Internet are freely available to all, competition between artistes would be keen and would spur the artistes to reach the pinnacle of their craft in order to be noticed.  

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On the other hand, the artistes who create the films and music pieces require payment for their work, in order to survive and to be able to continue creating. The advent of technology has made it all too easy for piracy to flourish on the Internet and deprive the creators of their well-earned livelihoods. If left unchecked, this situation would result in artistes being unable to create new material as they would not benefit from the process. In Korea, where piracy of music on the Internet is rampant, some K-pop music stars have had to work other day jobs and create music only in their free time, as the royalties they receive from their music is insufficient to fund their lifestyles. As a result, their fans had to wait long periods of time before they got to enjoy new songs from these artistes.  

I believe that an optimal solution would be for certain classics to be available free on the internet to inspire new artistes and for the enjoyment of the general public, whilst new materials should be paid for in order to protect the artistes’ livelihoods. Such a model would be made possible with advances in technology and systems that weed out pirated materials and allow easy payments to be made to the artistes. An illustration of this in work is Spotify, an internet application that allows the streaming of music for a fee which is then channelled to the artistes who share and showcase their work on the application, and ensures that pirated work is deleted from the site.  

Having considered the points above, it is clear that the proliferation of free music and videos online is a double edged sword. Whilst the general public benefits greatly from having these free resources, the threat of piracy of artistes’ materials to create the free resources is also present, negatively impacting on the artistes’ ability to make a decent living.

Total Words: 440

Task Achievement: 9

Coherence & Cohesion: 9

Lexical resources: 9

Grammar: 9

Overall Score: Band 9

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