Friday, May 30, 2008

NCT Essay.

The Digital Age of Music Distrubution.


Since the creation of recorded music, consumers have been able and willing to share or trade music with one another. However, it was only with the invention of the cassette tape in 1962 that the music industry was subjected to piracy and copyright infringements. With the minimal cost of a compact disc recordable and the ever advancing capabilities of technology such as the IPod, consumers can now obtain a wide variety of music with no associated costs from either the internet or person to person file sharing networks.

Although discrete, the first person to person file sharing network was invented and put to use in the late 1960’s. However, the person to person file sharing networks we are familiar with were conceptualized in the 1980’s. These networks were not intended to be a mass online media library; they were purely designed as a communication tool. (Greco, 2000).

“While networks are old forms of social organization, they are now empowered by new information/communication technologies, so that they now become able to cope at the same time with flexible decentralization…”(HREF 5 Cited Castells, 2000).

It was not until 1999 that the music industry was introduced to its demise or rise, Napster. Napster originated from nineteen year old tertiary education student Shawn Fanning and his discontentment with poor download speeds and inconsistencies in the reliability of download links. It was then, the college student quit tertiary education to devote his life to conceive a server that would display user’s personal multimedia libraries and enable them to be distributed and traded worldwide in an audio format known as mp3. (Gere, 2002).

An Mp3 is the abbreviation for MPEG3, which in turn stands for “Motion Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer 3”. The Mp3 as an audio format proves to be popular within person to person file sharing networks as it is approximately a tenth of the standard compact disc audio files, thus making it easier to circulate and transfer on the internet. However, in contrary to other compressed audio files the mp3 manages to lose minimal audio quality. (Feldman, 1997)

Due to Napster’s innovative conceptual nature, its general format became recognized as a major influence on other person to person file sharing networks such as: various Torrent applications, Kazaa, Limewire and Winmx. Perhaps, the only problematic concern with Napster was it had sole liability over its servers. This meaning, despite whether Napster itself was copying music, it had the responsibility of what was happening on its server. Therefore, Napster was held accountable for the user’s actions. (HREF 8, 2001)

After its first year, Napster proved to become a dominant and successful person to person file sharing network securing 25 million users. The success of Napster recognized a potential shift within the music industry and its methods of distribution and marketing. Furthermore, the consumers were offered an alternative option and thus were uninhibited by the constant price inflation associated with compact discs. Consumers could now access music free of charge and without restriction of trend, supply or demand.

Furthermore, in conjunction with the affordability of basic home recording equipment, more underground, local, independent and overseas artists were able to market and distribute their music to audiences which were once unattainable. However, it is just not small acts whom are involved within the digital music downloading revolution as critically acclaimed bands such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have released full length albums which were void of any contractual agreements with record labels and were only distributed online.

“You know, my whole vibe on Napster is, I understand how it will help life for unsigned bands. It is definitely a window to showcase a lot of bands [that] probably wouldn’t be getting to hear from a lot of these majors”. (HREF 9 Cited Shaggy, 2001).

However, not everyone has embraced and adapted to the new potential marketing and distribution techniques made available by the internet. This is due to the rapid decline in record sales since the creation of Napster and other person to person file sharing networks alike. In 2004, the Australia Record Industry Association (ARIA) recorded an annual decline of 6% in the sales of recorded music, which approximated to about 40 million dollars (HREF 2, 2004). In addition, many successful artists have expressed their aversion and frustration towards Napster and other various file sharing networks as it is damaging their annual income.

“When I worked 9 to 5, I expected to get a paycheck every week. It's the same with music; if I'm putting my heart and all my time into music, I expect to get rewarded for that. I work hard and anybody can just throw a computer up and download my music for free” (HREF 3 Cited Eminem, 2000).

Due to its breach of copyright laws and illegal status, person to person file sharing has certain legal ramifications. In 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued 1,500 people guilty of breaching the copyright laws “The industry group says that a handful of people have countersued, using a variety of claims…” (HREF 1 cited John Borland, 2004).
In some cases, users of person to person file sharing networks can be sued for $150,000 per song downloaded by the user. “Nobody likes playing the heavy and having to resort to litigation, but when your product is being regularly stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action” (HREF 1 Cited Cary Sherman, 2003).

In conclusion, despite being a limitless promotional tool for local or unsigned artists attempting to succeed within the industry, it does not seem rational or reasonable to harm the income of earlier professional musicians. Therefore, due to the increasing utilization of the internet within society it seems further experimentation is required by artists and record labels alike to implement a new business infrastructure that allows both professional musicians, unsigned musicians and record companies to embrace the marketing and distribution possibilities of the internet. With the price of bandwidth rapidly decreasing, it seems unless alternative forms of legal and paid person to person file sharing is created, the further decline of record sales and the recording industry appears inevitable.

“As soon as broadband is big enough, the record business is over. They will have to change or die... It's going to be about five minutes to the end. All bets are off.” (Hales, cited Elvis Costello 2005).




Bibliography


Books

Feldman, T. (1997). An Introduction to Digital Media. London : Routledge.
Gere, C. (2002). Digital Culture. London : Reaktion Books.
Greco, A. (2000). The Media and Entertainment Industries: Reading in Mass Communications. Sydney : Allyn and Bacon.
Lathrop, T. & Pettigrew, J. (1999) This business of Music Marketing and Promotion. New York : Billboard Books.
Taylor, J.& Laing. D.(2000). Music, Culture and Society. New York : Oxford University Press.


Digital resources

Authored Websites

Gowan, Michael. (2003) Apple's ITunes Music Store Is a Winner.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,110991,00.asp

Hales, Paul. (2005) Record industry about to die, says Elvis Costello.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22030

Mc Manus, Sean. (2008) Short History of File Sharing.

http://www.sean.co.uk/a/musicjournalism/var/historyoffilesharing.shtm


Un-authored Websites

HREF 1: “12 yr old sued for music downloading”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,96797,00.html

HREF 2: “Aria Year Statistics”

http://www.aria.com.au/pages/documents/2002ARIAYearlyStatistics.pdf

HREF 3: “Eminem – File Sharing”

http://www.musicunited.org/3_artists.html

HREF 4: “File Sharing”

http://www.cippic.ca/en/faqs-resources/file-sharing/#faq

HREF 5: “Google Books”

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=GqqPDLXNlbUC&pg=PA189&lpg=PA189&dq=%22While+networks+are+old+forms+of+social+organisation,+they+are+now+empowered%22&source=web&ots=SZowPMK7N3&sig=166q4T7bZ9ZDSYFVUtgRL3hIxno&hl=en
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