The Impact of the Internet On the music Industry

[tonio]

Hi guys,

I am doing a research project for the business management course I am doing. And its looking at the impact the internet has had on the music industry in terms of piracy, marketing, increased number of indepenet artists, falling sales etc. And also how the music industry has had to innovate and change. So if you have any thoughts or ideas i would be extremly greatful if you could share them here, plesae note If i use any of the thoughts and ideas expressed here in my written report you will be acknowelege for it!!

 

[Shonsteez]

Id say the internet has: (1) greatly enabled the bedroom producer/band to become widely exposed compared to back in the 90's, (2) allowed listeners/fans from all over the world to be able to hear a massive increase of new music from these said artists, (3) allowed a tremendous increase of poorly recorded, sadly performed music be injected into the blogosphere, forums, internet music scene, etc. (4) allowed some really amazing music to finally become more easily heard, (5) pretty much murdered the artist as whole at this point. Right now present day, one can easily visit their favorite blog on the internet and download an artists full catalog within a couple minutes. You can even obtain albums before their street date even arrives these days. The only way this used to be possible back in the 90's was typically through physical CD advances from label reps...nowadays, if your a musician/beatmaker/artist/etc. the only real areas left for financial gain are through touring, merch, limited quantity CD sales at shows, and maybe some publishing if your lucky. (6) the sad reality is the internet/technology has both helped music progress leaps and bounds, yet also horribly degrade it....and not even gracefully. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if we dont even see CD's or any other physical medium around in the next 10 yrs.

 

[dacalion]

Too much bad in any system will cause it to fail...Major labels greed and antics have caused many artist to take the independent route. Most major artist are signed with the majors and what ever is left is picked up by the indies making the indies the lesser (talent wise) of the two yet more popular(numbers wise). That formula equals more, lesser talent and a decrease in product sales due to the lack of overall talent. Throw in piracy and you have the perfect formula for definite failure which is where we are at.

I don't blame ALL of the problems on the internet, we also have a saturation of mp3 styled devices in the market which makes downloading more popular than buying CD's or albums which also eliminates the need for record stores and home stereo stores (which relied heavily on CD's and albums).

Obviously just a bad formula for the entire system in my opinion.

 

[Pug]

Agreed with the above posts... I'd also like to add to Dac's point about saturation of music devices. Not just the devices itself, the music is becoming oversaturated itself. There's so much available, so much choice, and all accessible within seconds. The music loses a bit of its magic I find. Remember the days where you'd clutch on to your favorite tape for a year, constantly playing it till the shit wore out? Now we just have too much selection... which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but lets be honest... there's a lot of shit on the internet. I admit, I used to d/l tons of shit off the web, and most of it sat in a directory never to be heard. anyways, end of my rant.

 

[hanayalator]

Ya I agree with what's been said. As for the above point, remember the days when you used to know EVERY song on an album? That doesn't happen anymore. Singles are the name of the game, and because you can buy (or dl) your favourite mp3, albums are getting destroyed, not only in sales, but the actual concept of an album. I remember when albums used to have a couple of banging songs, with the rest being great songs that weren't really singles but still played a role. Nowadays everything is made to beb a single (which may explain why you hear so much wack shit out there). Obviously you'll want to talk about mp3s and ipods, and how the labels are hurting (and the artists too). You might want to touch on piracy and how it has changed the industry. Overall I think it'll be a very interesting topic with lots of information to include.

 

[tonio]

Hey thanks alot for the great input guys, you have all put some intresting and valid points across, which all tie in with my personal thoughts on this subject.

Thanks

Tonio