How The Internet has Affected the Music Industry Essay Example
How The Internet has Affected the Music Industry Essay Example

How The Internet has Affected the Music Industry Essay Example

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  • Pages: 3 (569 words)
  • Published: October 22, 2017
  • Type: Essay
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When Tim-Berners Lee first conceived the global web, only a few people shared his optimism about its future. However, in the past decade, the Internet has evolved from simple web pages to include various forms of entertainment and commerce. Today, it is a significant market for the music industry and is projected to make up more than 25% of sales in the next five years.

Yet, along with its potential, the Internet also poses challenges for the music industry. While online shopping has been available for some time now, it only recently gained widespread popularity. Before that, companies and individuals were hesitant to fully embrace this powerful asset that has proven to save millions. The introduction of programs like Windows 98 helped establish trust in online security and fundamentally changed how we use the Internet and its impact on the music industry.

This relationship between the Internet and music has result

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ed in significant transformations by altering our purchasing habits and providing a new platform for musicians and record companies to promote their work. Technological advancements such as RealAudio have enabled consumers to listen to music through the internet. Additionally, with faster internet connections and broadband services introduced, individuals can now enjoy listening to internet radio stations while simultaneously browsing using a technique called 'streaming'.The advancement of technology greatly benefits consumers and more advancements are likely to come. However, the music industry has some concerns about copyright infringement and declining sales. Various sectors within the industry, including musicians, record companies, songwriters, music publishers, distributors, and retail merchants have expressed these concerns. CD sales alone experienced a 7% decrease in the first half of 2002. Copyrights play a crucial

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role in controlling the market and regulating how copyrighted works are used. The internet has transformed the structure of the music industry as creating websites is easy and affordable. This allows anyone to access or transcribe someone's copyrighted work when it is available on a website or shared on the internet at large. Unfortunately, many consumers continue to download this copyrighted material for free without regard for copyrights in general. Attempting to address this issue faces challenges such as controlling distribution over numerous websites that engage in copyright fraud.On June 1st, 1999, Microsoft dominated both the computer science industry and cyberspace. This left little room for other companies to succeed until Shawn Fanning disrupted the power balance with his uncle's support by creating Napster – an MP3 website. Napster sparked public interest in downloading music from the internet as a first-year university student.

Before Napster, there was existing technology that wasn't widely adopted. However, Napster revolutionized how we obtain music online. Despite its major flaw of using copyrighted music without compensating record companies, Napster continued operating until Metallica sued them.

On October 31, 2000, Napster announced a partnership with Bertelsmann-RCA who invested $26 million to support them. Nevertheless, on July 26, 2001, a federal judge ordered Napster to shut down; yet it was back up and running just two days later.

Currently collaborating with major record companies EMI, Sony Music Entertainment ,and Universal;Napster aims to develop a new system where users pay either per song or through a monthly subscription fee—a system beneficial for everyone involved.

It appears that Microsoft along with record companies and internet companies have resolved their issues despite initial challenges. The internet is now seen

as greatly beneficial influence on the music industry despite once being considered a significant danger to it.

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