Topic 3 Week 4 - Music Sharing Online

'Hard times hit the music industry with the birth of Napster in 1999 – a technology that allowed people to easily copy and distribute MP3 files, leading to accusations of music copyright violations. A generation of music consumers became used to downloading songs free. When the US Supreme Court shut down Napster in 2001, other sites popped up in its place. Since then, music CD sales have precipitously declined, dropping 20 percent in 2008 compared with 2007'. This may be a downside to music sharing online but this isn't to say that people aren't still purchasing music with '2.4 billion songs were purchased on iTunes as Apple expanded into overseas markets'

There's also been a study which states that file sharing has had a limited effect on record sales, researchers from Harvard University wrote that 'While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing' (2004). So basically if someone isn't going to buy an album they wont download it illegally. To some extent this refers to me, if i want to give an artist a listen i will download an album and see what its like; if i really like an artist i would go out and buy their album because i want a certainty that the quality will be good.

There's no doubt that the music industry has changed. Even if its effected record sales or not, the whole concept of listening to music has changed. The Top 40 on radio 1 on Sundays, now has an added download chart, people can listen to the radio online and through the TV, even through mobiles. Also there's an increase on user-generated sites like Youtube, where millions of music video's can be accessed, from different countries, before they've even been released in this country. This might change popular music; with such an array of music to choose from, people have more of a choice in what they listen too. This means that bands might be noticed and made famous, Lily Allen and Kate Nash were found through Myspace; a social networking site. These sites just create more outlets for musicians to express themselves and give the audiences something more in return. I think these changes are definately beneficial and good for society.



The Christian Science Monitor (2009) Can a 'Day of Sharing' save the music industry?http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0225/p12s01-ussc.html

John Borland (2004) Music sharing doesn't kill CD sales http://news.cnet.com/2100-1027_3-5181562.html