Problem in Entertainment Industry

628 Words3 Pages
It would appear that after an extensive web search on the topic of problems in the entertainment industry, the prevailing concern seems to be in the area of illegal downloading versus declining physical media sales. “The decline in album sales following the inception of Napster, from 1999 through 2002, had been the most dramatic in the past 30 years.” (“An Analysis of,” 2005, p.1) Physical media being defined as actual books, music disks, movie and videodisks as well as games. While legal downloads are also a consideration and contribute to the decline in physical media sales, downloading is merely a scapegoat in the industries attempt to explain the loss of revenue. The industry is failing to give credit to the fact that the technology and means of access to media has changed along with the personal preferences of the end consumer. The inception of Napster and other file-sharing hosts that are still in business today came about with the increasing popularity of the Mp3 and MPEG4 formats for recorded music and movies. Zune, iPod and other personal media players that use this format has become an efficient and convenient platform on which to store and have mobile access to a large music or video collection without the burden of having the physical media present. While Napster and other file-sharing sites is a sore thumb for the industry where illegal downloading is concerned, the legal downloading of the same media has enabled consumers to be more selective in what they purchase. Many people in the past have bought albums, tapes and disks for the want of one or two songs from the entire production with the mindset that not all of the songs are worth paying for. This freedom of selective purchasing from an album is one reason that has contributed to the decline in full album sales. Another factor in the decline is streaming media with sites such as Spotify.
Open Document