MUSIC INDUSTRY

Music Industry



Music Industry

Introduction

The emergence and use of the internet have impacted on the music industry's structure and the methods that have been used for creating, promoting and distributing music. These changes have affected the economic structures of the music industry. Recently, Susan Boyle, a contestant from Britian's Got Talent, became the world's latest YouTube sensation. Her performance was posted online and has been viewed by millions of people around the world, giving her an instant global fan base. Susan's story is an example of how the world of music and entertainment has evolved in the Internet age. This essay will examine the future of music industry in this day and age. Challenges faced by the recording industry will be discussed and ethical issues and moral panics examined in response to threats presented by the technological innovations. The statement “everybody knows that piracy is killing the music business” is fair, however will not be the demise of the music industry. Rather the music industry's fear of adapting to new trends, could be a bigger threat.

Background

The music industry has always responded negatively to the introduction of new media, particularly those that have allowed consumers to copy music. For example, in 1988, CBS Songs attempted to sue Amstrad, trying to make cassette tapes illegal. The music industry condemned this practice of home taping with slogans stating, "Home Taping is Killing Music" (Collis, 2009b). Similarly, in 2005, CD burners were blamed for “Killing the Music Industry” (Collis, 2009b).

Although these concerns are prominently discussed due to their serious legal and economic implications, cries to help the industry go unheard as reproducing technologies are continuing to be advanced and readily available.

There has ever increasing dependence of the public to downloading music from the internet.

Aims and objectives

The purpose of my study is to ascertain whether the process of purchasing music as a means of identity has been perpetually lost by the process of downloading music.

My aim is to develop a greater understanding if music building/sharing technologies such as I-tunes are an appropriate substitute as a means of expressing ourselves through our musical tastes,

Has the act of purchasing in the store to the art of building an album collection has been lost through the readily available downloaded music of today.

The study is of relevance to the music industry as the majority of their work on the affect of downloaded music is on how much it costs the industry, and what measures they use to tackle this issue, while this study will focus on the cost to the consumer, in terms of identity lost from loss of the music buying process, and to discover realistic remedies to this issue.

In the last decade numerous articles/publications on the affects of the music download industry have appeared primarily focusing on the cost in terms of loss in sales to the music industry, however few studies explores to ascertain why some people purchase music(Lacher and Mizerski1994) or download music legally or illegally(Ouellet ...