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MP3 Essay

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Mp3 argument

The Next Revolution in Music Technology: Make or Break?

Throughout life I have encountered several different mediums of music including eight-track recordings, vinyl records, cassette tapes, mini-discs, digital audio tapes (DAT), and compact discs. I have always considered the CD to be the greatest technological advancement (as a medium of music) of my generation because it was the first digital audio format made readily available to the general public. Because of the CD, people were hearing music like they had never heard it before - exactly as it would sound in the artist’s recording studio. Among other things, we have digital audio technology to thank for that. But we have recently been …show more content…

The players connect to a computer, and MP3 files are transferred to them, allowing users to utilize the portable unit the same way they use a portable cassette or CD player. As you may see by this brief overview, the new audio format has generated a lot of activity. As far as obtaining MP3 audio files goes, there are thousands of web sites dedicated to supplying the files (mp3.com, mp3.box.sk, mp3.lycos.com). An Internet surfer can search for music in MP3 format, and by the simple click of a button, have the music transferred to his or her computer in as little as five minutes or even less.
What types of music are available in MP3 format? Any type one could imagine.
While a portion of MP3 files in existence are created by individual, unsigned music artists, there is also a large amount of commercial, copyright-protected music freely available for download from the Internet. This is the beginning of a complicated argument.
Now that it is possible for consumers to download copyrighted material free of charge, major record labels have a great fear.
“Tons of people use it [MP3] online, but most big record labels have not embraced it for fear of privacy, since the format also allows for widespread copying of illegal files.”
(Sullivan 1999).
On the

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