The Effects Of Cloud Based Music Streaming On Piracy And Music Consumption

After the period elapses, any person can use, print, publish, and distribute the original work. The music industry has been in dispute for many years in respect to music piracy. It went after software and website developers, as well as consumers in the courts (Easley, 2005, p.163). As a result, this may be why governing the expansion of the music industry towards later benefits for the industry; however, not toward those who pirate from them (Easley, 2005, p.163). There is clear evidence of a willingness to pay for online music in general through legal download services such as iTunes (Easley, 2005, p.163). It is clear that some new markets are emerging; for example, services such as 4G LTE combine music with other services. These markets may provide both better margins and better copyright protection to the music industry. Nevertheless, some forms of music piracy may ultimately come to be seen as an effective marketing channel for those services (Easley, 2005, p.163). Clearly the industry is adapting piracy issues.

In 1999, three young men who were passionate about computer programming created a website that would bring an entire industry to its knees. As the three boys, Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Fanning, worked hard on their project, they could’ve never imagined that their invention, a peer to peer music file sharing service called, Napster, would effectively revolutionize the way an entire generation created, delivered, and received its entertainment. Since then, the internet, file sharing, and the music industry has changed drastically. Since Napster’s invention in 1999 we’ve had millions of different similar services come about such as iTunes, Rhapsody. Roxio, YouTube, Spotify and NoiseTrade. Napster’s creation and then subsequent demise in 2002, sparked a controversy that still exists today, the effects of music downloading on music industry revenue.

Digital piracy on music has been a majorly disputed affair for the last eighteen years, about whether or not it favors the musical artists or affects them in a negative fashion. One of the many sides of the Digital piracy controversy expounds that it benefits the artist(s) by giving them a great deal of exposure that they may not have received had they not downloaded it for free, which in turn makes for a very significant acquisition in terms of sales on their part.

The music industry has undergone radical changes since the end of the 1990’s, largely a function of the internet and its effects on sales and copyright. Besides placing artists and their music on the world stage, the internet also permitted the downloading of music from free-file- exchange networks. A parallel and equally worrisome, phenomenon is record pirating, a practice made easier by the proliferation of CD burners and access to high speed internet. Unauthorized downloading and pirating circumvent intellectual property laws and result in reduced sales. “In Atlantic Canada, average annual household expenditures on CDs and audio cassettes dropped by 27 percent between 1996 and 2001, from $96.00 to $70.00.”

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

Record companies decided to embrace the profitable possibilities of using the internet and began working on legal pay services. These sites attracted customers by offering legal downloads of individual tracks for very low prices. As a result, millions of music lovers today enjoy downloading 99 cent tracks off of online merchants such as iTunes and Amazon. The music industry is also pleased with these legal pay services, because revenue is increasing again due to the ease, cost-effectiveness, and widespread popularity of buying and selling music digitally. While Fanning’s invention caused a lot of financial damage to the music industry, it also forced them to look towards the future and contemplate how it could adapt to the emerging internet age. Unfortunately, while the recording industry does make plenty of money from legal music downloads, Fanning and his legendary website have become the model for the dozens of illegal music file-sharing sites that have emerged over the past 16 years since Napster’s launch. The educational eMagazine, SchoolVideoNews, states that, “Software such as Gnutella, Limewire, Kazaa…and other free, open-source software used to trade any type of file…have been popular networks for pirating music since Napster” (Britt). These types of companies, and their users, are constantly discovered and sued by

Digital recording and digital distribution has affected the Recorded Music Industry in many different ways; it has created issues for major record labels and solutions for independent artists. Digital recording has made it harder for labels to stop piracy, and easier for independent artists and labels to distribute and create music. The evolution of digital music has created an apparent and drastic shift in the way consumers and producers view and use the music industry. The existence of these music files that have been digitally compressed, making them easily obtainable for a small fee or illegally downloaded for free, has made the music industry reevaluate how they are able to make a profit from their art form. “These new means of music distributing and marketing have not only pushed the music industry to new levels, but has created a whirlwind of changes as record labels are losing control, with artists and consumers having the upper hand”(Stafford).

The "business side of music is struggling to generate enough revenue because of the new technology" ("How the Internet Changed Music."). "Most of the people who are part of making a record are paid in royalties, and anytime music changes hands without money being involved, those royalties can’t be paid—which is why so much has been done in recent years to try and reduce music piracy"("How The Internet Changed Music."). iTunes and Amazon has helped by offering cheap downloads for single songs, which allows the customer to only purchase songs they like rather than the entire album ("How the Internet Changed Music."). Spotify and Pandora, who offer either ad-based or paid subscription streaming of their music libraries, are Internet radio stations which have also helped with the piracy problem ("How The Internet Changed

No one can deny that technology is actively changing the music industry. Production, distribution and sales of music have been affected dramatically within the last 10 years along with artists, composers, and technicians. Most of the changes have been great for consumers, but vastly negative for professionals in the music industry, however a few artists have found ways to adapt to the changing atmosphere of digitally downloaded music and use it to their advantage. We’ve seen music change form from physical, tangible products like records and CD’s to electronic single tracks stored in an invisible cloud. Two major factors in this sudden revolution are online music stores (specifically iTunes) and file sharing websites that allow music to be downloaded illegally.

Introduction: Setting the trend for the future, the distribution and consumption of recorded music transformed dramatically with the launching of Apple’s iTunes in 2001. The proliferation of online music subscription services and other music sharing services exerted a great pressure on the conventional music distribution business model. Combined with this transformation, piracy of digital music had a profound impact on the whole industry. These worsening conditions in the market place for recorded music forced both established and upcoming new artists to experiment with new ways of selling their music.

When speaking economically, the digital music sector of the international music industry is undoubtably the most important sector in the industry. Within the last decade, music has seen cardinal changes in the way both major and independent labels distribute their products. An industry that once relied on Payola 's and mass distribution of physical records and CD 's now relies heavily on the power of the internet. The first instance of mass distribution of music through the internet was by the service Ritmoteca.com in 1998 [1]. Ritmoteca had a library of over 300,000 songs, offering individual songs for 99 cents each and albums for $9.99. After signing distribution deals with many major music labels such as Warner

“A decade’s worth of music file sharing has made it clear that the people it hurts are the creators... and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.”

A new type of theft has had a spike in the recent years, in which the internet has become extremely prominent at this time. This new theft is called “online piracy” This theft occurs when an online user uses a P2P(Peer to peer) website for file sharing, and shares files such as songs or software. This is considered theft due the fact that the files aren’t free, they have a price to them. Music Piracy is an abomination to artistry, and the creation of Art. It must be abolished.

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.

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.