The Internet and the Music Industry

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that online radio, which simply rebroadcasts the content from existing, traditional radio stations or is solely virtual, has done the music industry much more good than harm because it is able to expose a greater diversity of people to artists and a greater diversity of artists to people. The author, using statistics, points out the correlation that the more you burn from the Internet, the more CDs you buy; therefore, the author seeks other causes for the lagging sales in the music industry, such as the recession, competition from other forms of entertainment, consolidation of radio stations, the ever-increasing CD prices, and even cellphones. The paper relates that the music industry's legal campaign against downloading is being circumvented by new technology, such as "Grouper", which only allows users to "stream" songs from a peer and, thus, operates legally under the "private performance" section of the copyright law.

Table of Contents
Introduction
History of Online Radio
History of Music Downloads
Effects of Online Radio on the Music Industry
Effects of Music Downloads
Current Legal Status of Downloading

From the Paper:

"As technology increased, so did the popularity of file sharing software like Napster. Although the use of such file-sharing software to download non-copyrighted material is not illegal, the propensity was for users to download copyrighted materials ("File Sharing"). For the last few years, the legalities of file sharing have made the issue one of the central debates. Record companies and musicians argue on both sides of the issue. Most, however, feel that unauthorized music downloads infringe on their livelihood and have negatively affected the profitability of the music industry as a whole. However, this may not be true."

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• Research Paper # 148688 : "The Internet and Digital Entertainment"

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