Do You Think That Internet Distribution of Digital Music Will Increase or Decrease the Amount and Variety of Music Available to the Consumer?

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Do you think that Internet distribution of digital music will increase or decrease the amount and variety of music available to the consumer? Internet distribution of digital music refers to the delivery of music without conventional physical methods to the customer such as vinyl, cd or ‘tape’. The music is essentially compacted into data and stored in wav, flac or mp3 formats which then will be stored onto a harddrive in the form on ‘bytes’. The substitution of physical delivery comes in the form on a download from online musical distributors such as ‘iTunes’, ‘Beatport’ and ‘Trackitdown’. Online distribution of music accounts for 80% of the industry revenue, which is estimated to be an industry whole of $5.34 billion by 2012 fall (Demery 2008). The introduction of online music distribution has revolutionised the music industry and digital revenues have rose to £166 million. A more threatening side of music downloads has been the emergence of file sharing and piracy that has recently arisen, which is freely accessible to download without payment required. The international federation of phonographic industry states 95% of all music downloads are sourced unlawfully (Rogers, 2009). Regrettably, MP3 files are not secure and once someone has acquired a file nothing stops them from making other copies from it. Unlike the copies made using analogue mediums such as cassette tape recorders, all copies made using digital technology are identical to the original file (Fisher, 2000: II). As a result stricter laws are being introduced and music producers are frowning upon the file sharers, more commonly known as ‘leakers’. This has had an effect upon artist’s attitudes and careers as they are likely to have their music leaked thus meaning they aren’t profiting as much for their work, whereas the file sharers are receiving the benefits. The pirates are making copies of

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