The Future of The Music Industry

The future of the music industry has been and still is in a battle for it's rights. Since the dawn of file sharing programs the record industries have been losing increasing amounts of money due to the file sharing of copyrighted works With the rise of Napster in the 90's each time the record companies score a victory they lose more ground to an increase in music file sharing. I know friends who have never purchased a CD in their entire life. They have thousands of songs and if each song is worth roughly a dollar by today's standards then the money that the music industry has lost is truly astounding.


Legal alternatives exist to this file sharing problem. Itunes is a great example of how music has gone on-line and is providing a legal way for people to obtain it. The music industry however is not pleased with itrunes and is unhappy with the fact that itunes demands that each song be sold for ninety nine cents. They have tried to persuade itunes into increasing the price but are unable to because itunes is so adamant that they keep the ninety nine cent price tag on all songs because it sounds good to consumers.

As the sale of MP3 players booms and digital music is more popular then ever the music industry needs to get with the Internet program. CD sales have been falling for years although there has been a revitalise interest in records and vinyl. This is because some people enjoy the feeling of owning records and playing them the old school way. I feel that if the music industry wants to continue making a profit that they need to get more aggressive with file sharing services and copy right violations. They also need to produce more on-line options for customers and not allow apple itunes to have a monopoly on the on-line music industry. I feel that if it becomes more difficult to file share high quality versions of songs for free then people will start to turn the legitimate options on-line. It is apparent from current trends that the future of the music industry is obviously going to be heavily rooted in the Internet.