Music+Downloads+Good+for+Industry

HOW MUSIC DOWNLOADING IS GOOD FOR THE INDUSTRY  

Ever since the creation of Napster, music downloading, legally or illegally, has become popular. “The record industry's public enemy No. 1 has become its new best friend. Shawn Fanning, the teenage techie turned Internet icon who at 18 began designing Napster in his Northeastern college dorm room--firing the opening salvo in what would become a revolution in the music industry--has launched a company to, of all things, protect intellectual property.”( Dell 1). Now, no one has to go to record stores to get CDs. Now, with the internet, people can get music off Itunes, or websites extremely fast. With that, music has become extremely popular with the lots of help from MP3 players. Now a days, everybody has an Ipod, Zune, ect.With the click of the mouse, you can get any song you want. "Music downloading is becoming extremely popular as technology becomes more advanced, and popular". (Downloading Legal Music 2). The music industry has boomed from music downloading. There has been some controversy over that illegal music downloading has hurt the industry. The music industry has suffered. "The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has released a report on Digital Music 2009. According to the report. It concludes that despite initiatives by the music industry, 95% of music downloads continue to be illegal. Yes, the IFPI, or as it's known, the global version of the RIAA, says that 40 billion songs were illegally downloaded in 2008,"( Santo 2). But, there has been some studies that prove that it has helped. On [|Harvard Business School], states that illegal music downloading is helping the industry. “ Internet music piracy not only doesn't hurt legitimate CD sales, it may even boost sales of some types of music” ( Silverthorne "Music"). Their research shows that people don’t download entire CDs from the internet. They download a few songs, typically the hits that one would also hear on a Top 40 station. This suggests that P2P is much like the radio, a great tool to promote new music. The music industry has of course long recognized that giving away samples of music for free over the airwaves can stimulate sales (Silverthorne "Music"). There is a lot of evidence that music downloading helps the industry. Keith Hagan found a similar article that states that when people download music, they download the music to sample it, then they go buy the CD. Here is the link to that [|article].  (Elio Pettigrosso 6) 

The article states that music piracy increases CD sales. University of London researchers, Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz discovered that the more music a person downloads, the more they buy. It means that if someone downloads 270 songs a year via BitTorrent, he or she will buy 9 CDs more than someone who only downloads 27 songs. (Keith Hagan). Shamus found a similar article like mine. I have found an [|article] that conducted a similar study to the one Keith found. According to this Canadian study, it states that for every two albums that are downloaded illegally, one of the two people that downloaded that album go out and purchase the album legally. “This means that for each one percent increase in illegal downloads, an additional four percent go to legal music sales in the Canadian market” ("Piracy"). I find that when a music lover previews something that they like, they are likely going to purchase the album legally. (Shamus Clancy). There are also some countries that are taking action to illegal music download. The Songwriters Association of Canada (//[http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/62/128/|SAC]) is going to allow peer to peer (P2P) music filesharing for a 5 dollar tax levy per month. Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa who specializes in Internet and commerce Law, says in his article that this is a bad idea because a lot of Canadians are complaning about the 60 dollars per year just to get unlimited P2P music downloading. (Colin Dabagian).// //Also, in [[[] |China]]//, Google Inc. has launched its program for music downloads. It will be sharing advertising revenue with major music labels with online piracy. “Lee Kai-Fu, president of Google in greater China, said one reason Google lagged in the mainland search market was because it did not offer music downloads, the missing piece to its strategy.”( PC Magazine Online). There are 350,000 songs to download from google, but in the coming months, there will be 1.1 million songs. Downloaders will be able to search by musical measurements such as the level of beats in a song, and by artist and song name. 99 percent of all music files downloaded in China are pirated stated by the IFPI. China's overall legitimate music market, at $76 million, accounts for less than 1 percent of global recorded music sales. This new service will stop many of the illegal music downloads in the country, because the service and music will be better. (Elio Pettigrosso 6). Also, I found on a website, that states an article from the //Wall Street Journal. “// Earlier this year, Clear Channel Communications Inc.'s Premiere Radio Networks unit began marketing data on the most popular downloads from illegal file-sharing networks to help radio stations shape their playlists. The theory is that the songs attracting the most downloads online will also win the most listeners on the radio, helping stations sell more advertising. In turn, the service may even help the record labels, because radio airplay is still the biggest factor influencing record sales”( Matt Asay 2). This means that Radio Stations play songs that people most download, then they might go buy the CD to listen to the song. (Keith Hagan 6). 

But, with some lose, there are some [|gains] (link to article). Although the RIAA and IFPI frequently complain about piracy, their own research shows that only 10% of all illegal downloads are considered to be a loss in sales. Meanwhile, piracy has shown them how to use music online, and turn it into profit. Annually, RIAA’s global partner IFPI publishes a digital music report. For several years in a row the report has shown that the sales figures of digital music have gone up, but still, the industry continues to blame piracy for a loss in overall revenue. (Keith Hagan). Despite the fact that 95 percent of music is pirated, legal digital downloaded has increased and brought upon more revenue for the music companies and the music industry. “The digital music buisness internationally saw a sixth year of expansion in 2008, growing by an estinated 25 percent to US$3.7 billion in trade value” (“IFPI”). With growing numbers like this, the music industry can now fully embrace online downloading as a way music listeners can now get what they want. (Shamus Clancy)

There are also companies that are trying to stop, and prevent music downloading. This links back to google too. But, there is also another company that is factoring in. "Snocap is trying to solve that problem that file-sharing service Napster helped create, by identifying copyrighted music and preventing it from being swapped unless the user pays." Dell 1). Snocap came out two weeks after Napster went bankrupt in 2002. Snocap's purpose is to help music providers offer file swapping without the viruses on illegal sites like Limewire, so customers would pay for the songs they downloaded. "Snocap is really a digital middleman, monitoring audio files as they are downloaded over music services that use Snocap's system." Snocap's main tool is a registry that stores music and acts as a global clearinghouse to identify tracks. (Elio Pettigrosso 6)

With technology increasing, and becoming more popular, music is becoming as popular as ever. Music downloading whether legally, or illegally downloaded, has helped the industry. With help from some companies, like Snowcap, or Google Inc., the music industry is booming. (Elio Pettigrosso 6) 

According to Brendan Ballou and the RIAA, the use of ITunes has illiminated the use for Cds. Also, he states that minimizing the use of Cds will help reduce the use of several materials like lacquer, aliminum and thin strips, and polycarbonate resin(Ballou, 1). Also, they have a very low risk of decomposing into the earth's surface, which will help reduce the ozone's reduction.Ballou states that the decomposition of polycarbonate CDs will have numerous long term risks. According to the Ballou and the CD Recycling Center of America, we could've saved 39,000,000,000 more pounds of polycarbonate. In the future, will downloading music off of the internet and off sites like ITunes illiminate the need for poly carbonate once and for all? (Rocks 5) []

According to Andrei Dumbitrescu, games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are increasing muisc sales. If someone likes a song on their favorite video game, they might be compelled to buy that song. Dumbitrescu states that in 2008, 22% of the people who had played a\ music simulator like Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Also, he states that these games have opened up more room for a new band to prosper. They can prosper because the more that the sales rise, there is mor room and a greater willingness to make or help someone become famous. In the future, will there be more music simulator games because these games have helped music sales rise dramatically? (Rocks 5) []

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