Napster & MP3: Redefining The Music Industry
Introduction
Napster was the first, very innovative music technology application that allowed users to download MP3 from the internet and other peers for free, or at a cost. Napster strongly adapted the word sharing and put it their own terms to avoid any copyright infringement but it ended badly on their part. This disruptive technology was leading the market and had over 60 million users by 2001. Although very similar technologies were soon after developed, Napster was still on top and lead the market. Many users knew exactly what they wanted but getting it seemed to be the difficult part once Napster and the RIAA went into a legal battle. More commonly, the industry has been shaped
…show more content…
In terms of the artists and musicians, I believe that although they started out as losers, in the end, they ended up winning because for already discovered, well-known singers, they are getting the royalties they are owed and for new, up and coming artists, they are getting their name out there in a much less expensive way than before and still making some sort of money to support their dream. The agents and label companies will become winners as well through the transformations. The larger companies will most likely lose some strength and then gain back once they begin to find new artists and those artists begin to take off. The risk/reward of the digital market here will yield much more reward and their financial strength from the start will help them be a winner here. I feel the biggest loser in throughout the entire industry transformation is the packaging and CD production industry. Because CDs are no longer at an all time high, they will no longer be needed. There is very little need for this and it has almost become a niche market, barely used for music anymore, unless someone is burning their own music onto a CD. Albums being created and sold solely onto a CD has decreased substantially and within the next few years could become something in the past. This is the biggest loser by far through the music industry transformation. Although customers might think they are
Perhaps no other example quite defines the concept of industry disruption as the Blockbuster / Netflix story. It will potentially go down as one of the biggest forehead-slaps and missed opportunities in history.
Though the projections for the fall quarter look promising the resurge us of books and CD’s is unlikely. Recent reports have sales of books falling as much as 34% over last year and the increase of eBooks over 300%. (Wolman, 2011) It also has CD sales being cut in half over the past decade. The rise of people buying digital music and streaming music is significant.
A&M Records vs Napster was one of the biggest copyright infringement cases that later defined the legality of file sharing. It was a class action lawsuit that include over fifteen major record labels including Universal Studios, Warner Bros, and Sony Entertainment. The official case though is called A&M Records vs Napster. A&M Records sued Napster claiming they were infringing on their plaintiff's intellectual property. Napster was a peer to peer file sharing service. It was mostly used to share mp3 music files in mass volumes. This was right at the start of mp3 players. Music was starting to become easily accessible through digital copies.
Another competing business or company, business B, will come along and provide a better way that will make consumers go to them instead of business A. Business A will have to come up with a better business strategy to out beat the competition and bring back the customers it lost and others and so on goes the cycle. This is what the CEO of Whole Foods means by the phrase “no business stays on top of its niche forever.” Another example will be Apple’s iPhones and keyboard phones. Apple used to be only a music, electronic company (iPod and iMac), and it sought out the phone business, which was dominated by Blackberry, LG, Samsung, etc. It was the first phone to not include a keyboard, everything was on a touch screen, and had internet access with music. It was thought to be a failure since it was very different but it proved to be the opposite. It became very popular with consumers and soon after many phone companies began to change their phones into touch screen phones. So far many companies have tried to be on top of Apple but have failed. Does this mean Apple is lucky and won’t go through what the CEO of Whom Food stated? I believe it will soon have a tough competitor in the near future (5 years from now) that will come along with interesting features that Apple’s iPhones don’t have. Meaning that some people will leave Apple’s iPhones and go with the next big thing whatever it
In 1930, President Theodore Roosevelt instituted the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for the purpose of providing for those who served in the military and their dependants. Because the VA is dedicated to providing care to those who have made a sacrifice for our country, it is often held to a higher standard than other healthcare providers, however, many have criticized the VA for failing the veterans by being financially wasteful, ethically unsound, and inefficient in providing health care. As of late, the VA has been seen in a negative light due to an influx of scandals, and many have began questioning who should responsible for fixing the issues that haunt the VA. The VA cannot be allowed to continuously fail these
Since April 2003, iTunes Music Store has permitted the consumer to purchase music and digital books over the Internet with success. By 2005 their shares increase significantly as a result of their tremendous success. Their product became a platform for the digital music business to explode into the industry it is today. This also made digital music affordable to the consumer who may have gone to illegal downloads in the past which in turn ensured that the music industry was getting paid for their product as well. The $0.99 cents per song download provided $0.70 cents to be paid to the record companies and the remainder ($0.29 cents) was Apple profit. By August 2005, some of the larger record companies felt that their product was
Over the year’s man and woman conflict have been a normal part of life. Where there are relationships there will be conflict. Researcher Anna Snyder says “A critical component of successful male-female relationships is the ability of the couples to handle conflict” (Snyder 10). Resolving conflict, or not can be vital for the fifty-fifty survival rate of marriages. In the two plays, Trifles by Susan Glaspell, and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. Both actors have a great background of literature, Glaspell an American Pulitzer Prize-winner, playwright, novelist, and Arthur Miller who also was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Withal plays can relate in ways to different gender conflicts, and the problems that takes place in everyday relationships. Men and women may face different demands of resolving these conflicts. Men tend to handle things in a more aggressive way, as to woman being the calm ones. Throughout these two plays they may differ.
The music recording industry is in trouble. For several years now, sales of new and popular music have steadily declined and show no sign of changing. The record companies are quick to blame the growing popularity of the Internet; music is being traded in a digital form online, often anonymously, with the use of file-sharing programs such as Morpheus, KaZaA, and Imesh, to name a few. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) succeeded in disbanding the pioneer Internet file-sharing program, Napster, but is facing confrontation with similar programs that are escaping American copyright laws. While there is an obvious connection between declining popular music
Starting in the year 1999, a company called Napster opened up a whole new world to the Internet where every song ever made was instantly available to you on your computer for free. It was created by an 18-year-old Northeastern University student named Shawn Fanning. Napster transformed personal computers into servers that shared mp3 files all across the Internet (Mayer, 2008). It became popular very quickly because exchanging mp3 files freely and having any music desired right at your fingertips had never been possible before. However, this program that provided the privilege of having free instant music to download did not last long, it was shut down after just two years by
Music will never be obsolete, the medium may diminish but the music will remain. These pivotal issues are where we as individuals who become formally educated in the industry work to keep it afloat. These issues range from artists not receiving or earning very little royalty payments, artists and musicians having a harder time becoming mainstream due to the ease of access to technology, cancelled concerts because of low ticket sales, and rising ticket prices and inflation from resellers; The list is vast. The key to researching one of these fascinating topics is first identifying my goal for the research. In finding a topic that I believe progresses the industry I need to present a diligent case study that I nurtured. At first, I thought about building a new module to the form new standards for RIAA Certifications but then I realized that Adele has sold over 7 million copies of “25” and is currently number one on Billboard. This is the follow up album to “21” that never left the charts before her next album was released. I also recalled a night of watching a jaw-dropping episode of Scandal only to have Beyoncé unhinge what was left of my mandible when she released “Beyoncé” out the clear digital skies. It appealed to me because I can recall as a middle schooler anticipating first week sales of my favorite artists. I am not sure if that was normal 11 year old behavior but I will own it! We can agree that most of these artists possess a unique spark that allows them to prevail against the negative elements, so researching their creative footprint would not necessarily benefit upcoming artists as having a niche of their own is key. In my navigation through technology and my observations of the industry I have noticed a general upset when it comes to award shows as it pertains to nominees and
In early 1999, Shawn Fanning, a Northeastern University freshman, created Napster software. That summer he made it available for free through his Napster.com website. Napster is a peer-to-peer technology, which makes it possible for users to freely share their music files through the internet with other users all over the world. Specifically, this is how Napster works:
chimes back at you the melody of the song you selected. A man named Scott de Martinville of the 18th century was fascinated by the way photographs preserved images, and he felt as if he could do the same with sound. The invention of the phonograph was the beginning of the music industry. Musicians could now use a machine to record their sounds and then publish and dis- tribute records. With records came record labels, the leaders of the music business. Then just like everything else in a capitalist country it became all about the money, rather than the music. The business aspect of music should be based off of independent artistry in opposed to corporate wel- fare.
Although the plight of the Music Industry and that of a Dynasty have similar characteristics, the Music Industry differs in its overall chemistry. For example, let 's begin with the 80 's - the 80 's offered a
The music industry has changed in very quickly in so many ways it almost seems impossible. Thomas Edison recorded the first voice in 1877 and now we listen to hundreds of different types of music on devices that hold more information than the computers that sent the first astronaut to the moon. People have been getting music in tons of ways for the past hundred plus years and when the internet came into the picture, the music industry sky rocketed. People could get their own music out and be heard just by clicking a few measly buttons and using the internet to stream millions of songs with high speed. But even though the internet has helped the music industry by making it easier to distribute, advertise, and produce music, it still has its disadvantages.
Even though there were many companies involved in the DAP market before and after iPod was introduced, Apple still holds more than 70% of the DAP market share and they are the largest music store in major countries such as USA, Japan and Canada. Therefore, it can be argued that the iPod is not a sustaining technology but a disruptive technology.