Technology Could Bring About the End of the Music Industry as We Know It

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), 30 billion songs were illegally downloaded between 2004 and 2009. Even with sites like iTunes and Rhapsody offering legal downloads, peer-to-peer file sharing still exists. Illegally downloading music has had a significant impact on the music industry resulting in a loss of profits and jobs, and changing how music is delivered to the masses. (Adkins, n.d.) Showing that even having the ethically correct option P2P sharing of illegal media is still thriving. The RIAA reports that music sales in the United States have dropped

LimeWire, as many know, was a free peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing program. In August of 2006, LimeWire found themselves in some major legal trouble when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) demanded LimeWire be ceased for good. In the suit, the RIAA accused LimeWire of operating a web service ““devoted essentially” to piracy by allowing users to upload and download songs without permission.” (“Major Record Labels Settle Suit with LimeWire”).

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit accused LimeWire of creating and running a Web service “devoted essentially” to piracy in 2006. LimeWire used peer-to-peer file sharing networking technology to allow their users easily download distribution of copyrighted songs at no cost. The LimeWire peer-to-peer client software was downloaded over 50 million times in two years since the suit was brought up and an estimated 200 million copies in total. According to this result, the RIAA claims that “LimeWire owes trillions of dollars in damages for enabling distribution of copyrighted songs”.

In the magazine article, “How The Web Changed Music Forever”, Veronica Majerol describes how over the years, music and the way it is dispersed has changed alongside the evolution of technology. Long before the internet existed, “If a band was lucky enough to get a record deal, it gained access to a label's vast resources and connections.” which then allowed their music to be broadcasted on radios around the world, played in jukeboxes, and made into records. The mid-1990’s changed all of this when people began discovering the internet; new opportunities surfaced with this development. Disaster occurred for the record industry once the vast majority began using the internet to illegally download copyrighted music; listeners no longer needed to

In “The Music Industry Has Been Revolutionized,” Greg Kot explains musicians in the music industry are experiencing unwanted change around the world from technology since the popularity of file-sharing websites available online. Consumers of music don’t want to pay for music because of the increased availability, although not doing so prevents revenue for musicians. Explained in Kot’s article, increased popularity of file-sharing has made access to music so convenient to the point where the music industry is confused about how to respond to the lack of revenue while still keeping music readily available for consumer use. New technology has allowed the music industry more opportunities in being efficient with producing music. Furthermore, it

Economically, $12.5 billion in losses each year is due to piracy in the music industry, $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings are lost each year due to online piracy and almost 71,000 jobs are lost in the United States every year due to online piracy as well. It may seem that these numbers are horrifying, but one statistic proves otherwise. In the statistics for the highest and lowest piracy rates in 2010, the United States comes up the very top of the lowest piracy percentage, only accounting for 20% of media downloaded from the Internet. Most consumers in the U.S. obtain their media legally because they support their artists. They realize that artists are also people working and making their craft just like everyone else. Consumers may download the songs illegally, but if they really loved the album, they would buy the real deal.

We are currently in the Digital Era of music. Music recording has been transformed from music stored on vinyl records and audio cassettes to the first introduction of the Compact Disc. The Compact Disc was a huge shift in how music would be recorded, distributed and heard. Following the Compact Disk (CD), technology continued to advance with more inventions to aid our listening enjoyment. Among those inventions were the MP3 player, iPod, iPad, smartphone and the current ultimate digital music store, iTunes. Each of these digital advancements in music have intertwined their ability to offer consumers music that is handheld, portable and digitally store hundreds to thousands of music files into an electronic music library. However, all that glitters is not gold. The ability to download music from the Internet has created a piracy frenzy. Online file sharing sites, such as the now out-of-use Napster, have given consumers a way to steal music from the artists. “Napster opened us up to a world where we had the luxury of sharing music files amongst a massive community of nearly 80 million users (at its peak) without ever spending one penny” (Alex Bracetti, 2013). The history of music is not the only element that has been affected by digital technology. Digital technology has also

The music industry has been greatly affected by the rising interest in the internet. People can instantly listen to songs by a single search, even entire albums. Digital downloading has allowed people to have constant access to any and all music. Deciding whether it is affecting the music industry positively or negatively is its own question, but there is absolutely no question that the entire industry is affected.

The question then became “Just because we can get the music we want without paying for it, should we?” (Tyson, 2000, p.1). This issue of illegal downloads, which is also referred to as piracy, has been a hot topic ever since the introduction of Napster. According to Recording Industry Association of America “In the decade since peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.7 billion” (RIAA, 2014).

In the midst of the United States’ “dot com bubble” (years 1997-2000), there was a surge in technology that brought about file sharing and digital downloads. Threatening the survival of the music industry and introducing a unique set of challenges for the industry to overcome. To remain relevant in the new global market of digital music online, the music industry would have to evolve and change with the introduction of each new facet technology had to offer. The introduction of digitally compressed music files, so easily attainable for a small fee or downloaded legally (pirated) for free, made the music industry reevaluate how to make a profit and protect copyrights. Social media created a visible opportunity for both consumers and artists to maintain digital relationships while providing a platform for consumers to follow and discover new musicians and bands, naturally, making the internet a promotional medium for artists. As the corner record shops closed to make way for virtual storefronts and instant downloads; the internet, digital downloading, and social media made an enormous impact on the music industry that has changed the way consumers purchase, source, listen to, and produce music today.

The music industry consists of the companies and individuals that make money by creating and selling music (Wikipedia). The current music industry which emerged around the middle of the 20th century has been undergoing drastic changes for the past two decades. When the Internet, and peer-to-peer file-sharing services such as Napster, Kazaa and Limewire, began their rise at the turn of the millennium, many predicted that the music industry, among other entertainment sectors, was headed for impending doom and catastrophic losses in sales. To some degree, and for the first few years, these predictions seemed to become a reality as record sales fell drastically at least partially due to piracy. However, as technological change continues at a rate never before seen, the impact of the Internet has been expanded well beyond illegal downloading to include fundamentally different ways of distributing, promoting and marketing music.

The music industry continues to suffer tremendous loss as a result of online music piracy. A lot of companies in the music industry suffer from online piracy, including: publishers, production studios, record labels, among others (Scholes, 2014). On average, an iPod contains $800 of pirated music (Globe, 2011). A massive 95% of music downloaded online is illegal (Globe, 2011). Over the last decade, music revenue has continued drop. Figure 5.2 shows inflation adjusted sales in the music industry from 1973 to 2013. From 2004 to 2013, there has been an increase in online downloading music tracks. Experts blame overall industry revenue decreases to online piracy (Brown, 2014). Figure 5.2 also shows how CD sales have declined from 1999 to now. In attempt to compensate for a lack of music sales via CDs, and legal downloading, the price of concert tickets have gone up

Ever since 18-year-old Shawn Fanning created Napster in his Northeastern University dorm room in 1999, downloading and sharing music online has become one of the most popular things to do on the Internet today. But why wouldn't it? Getting all your favorite songs from all your favorite artists for free, who wouldn't want to start sharing music? The answer to that question are the people who feel that stealing from the music industry is not morally right, because that is exactly what every person who shares music is doing. People who download music think it's something they can get away with but now it might be payback time to a lot of those people.

The music industry has grown tremendously in the recent years. Long are the days when either our parents used songs and dance to pass down the ways of tradition to the youth or music being a hobby or pass time. In this age and era, music has proven to be more than just hobby or a vessel to ferry tradition down the lineage but a suitable career choice for talented youths. It has also helped shape the future of many youths e.g. RnB heavyweight Akon whose life history is an example that sheds light to the saying “from grass to grace”. The music industry has now become a like “money making wizard” where people just go and become rich and famous. With each

Companies like Apple, have decided that it is best to get in with the downloading business. However, an end to the illegal downloading conflict remains to be realized. The RIAA and associated artists continue to wage war against illegal downloaders while computer savvy audiences persist in sharing music files online every day. While it is undoubtedly true that downloading music is a crime, it remains to be proven that it is wrong. Without establishing this principle, most downloader's are likely to continue the activity. Even with new, inexpensive and available means of downloading files, they can still be shared for free online. The rift must be repaired between music lovers who feel that they have been taken advantage of in the past and recording companies and artists who worry about their future livelihood.