Sherman, Cary. "Music on the Internet: A New World is Waiting." Winter 2001. The Brookings Review. 5 April 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20080959>.

 

    "Music on the Internet: A New World is Waiting" by Cary Sherman discusses the way that the internet and the recording industry are interacting and how they are being changed by each other. Sherman acknowledges that illegal distribution of audio files on the internet is a "real threat" to the industry but also states that the sites lead consumers to believe that the music was free, just as everything else is on the internet. Therefore, while the consumers are the ones participating in the piracy, there is a possibility that they are not aware that their actions are illegal. In order to combat the possibility that people just do not know that they are pirating the music, the courts and the industry have pursued litigation to make it known that licenses are required in order to use copyrighted material on the internet.
    What we can learn from this article by Sherman is that consumers will not pay for something when they can get the same thing for free. Thus, when music is still available for free on the internet, it is difficult to conceive that piracy will be completely eliminated. Additionally, Sherman states that "litigation is not a business strategy" and the best method of combatting piracy would be to come up with a suitable and desirable alternative. Thus, as has been seen in recent years, the proliferation of subscription models and peer-to-peer distribution have allowed consumers more options to access their music. However, although today peer-to-peer file sharing and subscription services may be the best option for downloading and/or purchasing music, this is likely to change quite soon and quite radically as new technologies are developed and new indexes are available for use. As the recording industry continues to evolve alongside technology, we must look out for change on the horizon and keep in mind that adapting to new technologies and industries will allow us to gain the most from our evolving industries.

Griscom, Richard. "Distant Music: Delivering Audio over the Internet." March 2003. Music Library Association. 5 April 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/901040>.

 

    Richard Griscom's article "Distant Music: Delivering Audio over the Internet" discusses how the internet and personal computer have revolutionized the libraries and their abilities to catalogue and store audio materials. Digital music libraries consist of three departments that Griscom describes: infrastructure, collections and staffing. Within infrastructure there is streaming technology, equipment and archiving abilities to take into account. In collections, librarians must consider copyright law, the organization of the materials and how users will access them. Finally, staffing the coding of audio materials and making them digital is both costly and time consuming.
    However, what Griscom questions is whether or not some of these new technologies and the new digital resources made available in libraries is making a student's life too simple. The author also states that the line between preservation and access have become blurred as a result of using the same programs for preservation of materials as are now used to grant access to the recordings. While the development of these preservation and distribution services for academic audio content currently grant users easy access to materials that would otherwise be difficult to acquire, Griscom fears that despite the developments that have been made in digital audio, the formatting of said content will become obsolete and everything will have to be reformatted. However, in the meantime, the digital music libraries benefit students and academics and hopefully in the future will be available to the public.
    Access to digital audio via libraries will be important in the coming years with regards to education and how academic and rare materials are processed and distributed to users. However, if rare and academic digital audio is recorded, what will happen to music that is currently being released? Is there room in the libraries for modern and contemporary music that is currently being released?

Jones, Steve. "Music and the Internet." April 2000. Popular Music. Cambridge Univeristy Press. 5 April 2009.  < http://www.jstor.org/stable/853669>.

 

  "Music and the Internet" by Steve Jones discusses how the advancements made in media, specifically the Internet and the recording industry, have altered the way that consumers interact with the product. Jones states that digital music consumption is one of the greatest concerns plaguing the industry at the moment. Additionally, Jones wonders, with so much music available to choose from, how does one decide what to listen to? However, Jones' main point in "Music and the Internet" is the idea of media convergence and how different separate media (i.e. computer and telecommunications technology and the recording industry) are combining forces. Computer technologies are now used to create music and even will use computers to combine new and old music to create something different entirely, take for example the Remix culture and artists such as Girltalk. The overlap between these industries, Jones argues, calls for further study of how music production, consumption and distribution are all interconnected and will only become more so in the future.
    Finally, the author questions the division between us and them. As scholars (we) further study media convergence and how technologies and the recording industry are developing, we must also consider that when studying the audience, consumers, listeners (them), we are also a part of them. The us - them division is not so finite when we, the "scholars" as those analyzing the media and media consumers, are also avid media consumers as well and are inherently tied to the "them." Jones' point here is interesting, is it possible to objectively study this subject when we, ourselves, are part of the group being studied? Additionally, the movement of music is also a key area of study that Jones mentions. The movement of music currently is an interesting area of study because music is now often not held in a physical manner but rather the transfer and copying of music can be simply done with the click of a mouse. However, with issues such as piracy and copyright infringement becoming more and more prevalent in today's music industry, the format of music both makes things easier and more accessible but also more easily infringed upon.

Fitz-Gerald, Jane. "New media effect brings about major changes." Music Business International 7.3 (02 June 1997): 26. EBSCO MegaFILE. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 8 Apr. 2009 .

 

In "New media effect brings about major changes," by Jane Fitz-Gerald was written in 1997 and discusses how the Taiwanese music market was developing and adapting to changes in the recording industry. It is interesting to read this article looking back at the recording industry over ten years ago and examine how things were changing then and how they were expected to change in the future. Fitz-Gerald states, in the article, that Taiwan is a good example of the Asian music market in transition, but also states that the rate of change is so rapid that it is difficult for them to predict the market. With the government deregulation of cable channels in 1995, the number of cable television channels increased to over 100, which allowed many channels airing music programming to be broadcast. This opened up many new opportunities for artists to reach the public and also opportunities for the public to discover new music.
    Finally, Fitz-Gerald states that the domestic (Taiwanese) repertoire market share fell form 70% to 60%, indicating an increase in international music. Thus, with the increase of technological development and most likely also with the increase of the availability of the Internet, the music industry was increasingly globalized for both users and labels. In 1995, the pirate sales totaled $30.4 million, which was the equivalent to 13% of the total market. However, it is likely, that if we were to look at today’s figures the percentage of the market that consists of pirated sales would be significantly higher. On the whole, what is interesting about this article is the indication that, although the market was developing much too fast to be accurately predicted, as it is today, all of the indicators pointed to a more global and more technologically developed industry.

BBC News. "Why MP3 piracy is much bigger than Napster." BBC.com 13 February 2001. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1168087.stm>. 

Written in February of 2001, "Why MP3 piracy is much bigger than Napster" discusses the likelihood of shutting down Napster completely following the February 9, 2001 decision that Napster filesharing does infringe copyright. However, shutting down Napster will have little to no effect on how much music is traded and stored via the internet. Additionally, while the courts stated that the Napster service was infringing  copyright the courts decided not to grant the injunction that would shut down the service entirely. The problem with attempting to shut down the entire server is that, while Napster is what allows users to download the music from the internet, Napster itself is simply an index that locates all of the music. The files are, in fact, stored on each of the individual users' computers. Therefore, when downloading a file, a user is not actually downloading from Napster but rather from another user via Napster. Thus, as the article suggests, shutting down Napster would simply force users to use another sort of search engine or index, many of which the article lists as being alternative indexes that could perform the same tasks as Napster. Therefore, the article argues that for Napster to be truly and completely shut down, the courts would have to remove all of the infringing files from the 50 million user computers connected to Napster.
    Thus, what we can see from this article is that despite blatant copyright infringement, the courts are unwilling to issue the injunction because it seems as it if would be a bit of a wild goose chase. If the courts were to issue the injunction to shut down the service, the users would inevitably find another way to share files. Thus, as the recording industry and the way that users consume evolve, improving technology also allows users more and more freedom to in their consumption. They are no longer confined to purchases from the record stores and thus, it becomes increasingly difficult for the courts to regulate and control content when the owners of said content are so widespread and unreachable. As the article stated, in order to truly shut down Napster (and other servers of this kind), the courts would have to go into the personal computers of 50 million people and delete all of the infringing content being shared. On the whole, this seem to be unfeasible and should Napster be shut down, it would only follow that other servers and indexes would pop up shortly following.

Byrne, David. "David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists--and Megastars." Wired. 18 December 2007. <http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne>.

David Byrne's article "Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists - and Megastars" published in December of 2007 discusses the way that the interaction between artists and the labels have changed over time. Byrne argues that the recording industry today is not actually a business about music but a business about business and sales. He states, "at some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases..." The article discusses the progression of the commodification of music and the proliferation of different possible models for distribution of music. Byrne, a former member of The Talking Heads, lists his six possible models for music distribution: equity, standard distribution, license, profit-sharing, manufacturing and distribution, and self-distribution. These range from least artist control over product (equity) to self-distribution, which allows the artist complete control over the product. On the whole, the author advises artists to hold onto the publishing rights to their music as much possible.
    This article is relevant to music and new media now because along with the advent of new technology, artists have many more options and avenues to reach consumers. Byrne argues that the traditional label structure is too large and only represent the economic aspect of the industry and no longer foster the artistic interests of the musicians. Servers such as Myspace and new digital technology are transforming the recording industry into something entirely different and are allowing artists more freedom in how they manufacture and market their music as well as how it is released to the consumers. Just as the music industry has changed much over the past century, it is only bound to change more in the future as more digital technologies develop and become available to consumers and the industry.

Gopal, Ram D., Sudip Bhattacharjee, and G. Lawrence Sanders. "Do Artists Benefit from Online Music Sharing?." Journal of Business 79.3 (May 2006): 1503-1533. Business Source Premier. EBSCO. University of Pennsylvania Van Pelt Library, Philadelphia, PA. 8 Apr. 2009

The Sanders and Gopal article "Do Artists Benefit from Online Music Sharing?" discusses the economic implications of the internet and music file sharing on the recording industry. As the authors describe, it has become increasingsly simple for users to search and download files from the internet. While proponents of online music state that file sharing expands the market and helps new artists to become known. Additionally, they argue that by downloading music users will often sample the music and then purchase the entire album. On the other hand, however, opponents state that file sharing hurts sales because instead of buying the music, users are just downloading it for free. The challenge, Sanders and Gopal state, is to make it easier and more convenient for users to purchase the music than it is for them to steal the music. The other facet of the issue that the authors debate is the accessability and cost of music sampling. The authors argue that lower sampling costs erodes the phenomenon of superstardom and that more inexpensive and more convenient sampling methods will persuade users to purchase their music rather than downloading files illegally.

This article is relevant to my paper topic because it demonstrates how usage of the internet has influenced both the recording industry and how people consume music. While much of the statistics and math in this article are a little beyond what the average reader can understand. However, the point that the authors are making is quite relevant, especially with regards to the new varied pricing that iTunes has instituted in the last week. As piracy has become so easily accessible to the majority of the public, it is difficult to see how the future of online file sharing will play out and how this will affect the recording industry. What we must consider as these issues are further debated is that if the artists who are creating the music are not compensated, they will no longer make music for the consumers to enjoy. Therefore, perhaps, as the authors suggest, more convenient sampling prices will persuade the consumers to purchase their music rather than download illegally and, perhaps, through some restructuring of the market, we can save the struggling economy of the recording industry.

Sandoval, Greg. "What's the real cost of free music?" CNET 23 Mar 2009 1-3. 5 Apr 2009. <http://news.cnet.com/whats-the-real-cost-of-free-music/?part=rss>.

 

Greg Sandoval's article "What's the real cost of free music?" published on cnet.com discusses the death of free online music provider SprialFrog in March of 2009. Sandoval states that it was obvious that the service would not survive despite the good concept. Sandoval notes the prevalence of failure in the ad supported music service sector and the threat of going under lurking around every corner, as seen by the death of other services such as Rhapsody prior to SpiralFrog's demise. Although none of these ad supported music sites have yet to record any sort of profit, they have required quite a bit of funding to start and support. Additionally, Sandoval argues, the advertising market of today is "crumbling" and has not provided sufficient support for these sites to survive.
While radio is still a very prevalent source of music discovery, Sandoval notes that ad supported sites must pay a lot to license the music and make it free to users. While the intention of these sites is to boost and support sales, Sandoval notes that the sites are, in fact, replacing sales. Thus, as the record labels are losing sales to these free music sites, the industry is requesting that the sites increase their licensing fees to cover the costs of the lost sales. Finally, Sandoval argues that ad supported sites must adjust their model to encompass social networking sites, which are capable of amplifying the word of mouth necessary to spread the buzz about music and various ad-supported sites.
This article is relevant to my paper topic because the author discusses how changes in the landscape of new media and the recording industry and restructuring themselves according to consumer needs. Sandoval takes the failure of SpiralFrog and demonstrates how the structure of the ad supported music site is not an adequate model to produce any sort of profit. In the future of the music industry, ad supported sites will most likely not produce enough revenue to support the artists and executives of the record label but could, if linked, as Sandoval suggests, with social networking sites, provide the best possible model for advertising and popularizing new music.

McClure, Steve. "Freston Sees New Media Aiding Music Biz." Billboard 111.27 (03 July 1999): 57. EBSCO MegaFILE. EBSCO. University of Pennsylvania Van Pelt Library, Philadelphia, PA. 7 Apr. 2009 <https://proxy.library.upenn.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=keh&AN=1973296&site

 

Steve McClure's article "Freston Sees New Media Aiding Music Biz," published in Billboard in July of 1999, recounts the statements of Tom Freston, then the CEO and Chairman of MTV Networks. Freston stated that the music industry had nothing to fear from the proliferation of the Internet. Using the example of video and radio, playing on The Buggles 1979 song "Video Killed the Radio Star," Freston states that video never really killed the radio star, but rather radio altered itself and exanded to fit the new industry organization. Freston hypothesizes that new media, such as the internet, will only help to expand the music industry rather than rendering older, more traditional, media obselete.
Finally, McClure notes Freston's conception of the four ways that the Internet will affect the music business: more convenience, sense of community, more choice, and more creativity.

It is important to consider, when reading this article, that it was written in July of 1999. Therefore, as the Internet was becoming more widely available and open to new possibilities as well as the general public, the music industry was anticipating vast changes to operations. While Freston was not always correct in his predictions of how the Internet would influence the music business, what is perhaps most important here is the way that Freston argues for the adaptation rather than death of media. While The Buggles said that video killed the radio star, radio adapted for fit the new format, just as radio and video have adapted to the internet via the proliferation of sites such as Pandora, YouTube, Vimeo, Hulu, etc. Just as the Internet revolutionized the music business at the turn of the century, the internet will continue to do so in the future with new media and altered forms of traditional media.

In Donna Wentworth's 2004 Op-ed piece, "Dumb and Dumber: Why the Movie Industry Shouldn't Do as the Recording Industry has Done" strongly cautions Hollywood to stray away from actions taken by the music industry regarding file sharing. Wentworth points out that in 2003, movie studios profited heavily from the $41.6 billion in revenues, and enjoyed the second largest culmination of box office totals ever. Wentworth is mystified as to why the industry, and specifically the MPAA, is so worried that film piracy will destroy their business. According to her, the 6,000 lawsuits filed by the recording industry to target file sharing did little to impede illegal music downloads. The "pre-emptive strike agenda," as Wentworth calls it, will likewise be a lost cause in suppressing the prevalence of peer-to-peer file sharing, and will alienate the consumer. Wentworth goes on to reference the famous case concerning VCR use and copyright. The fact that the VCR was deemed legal in all homes allowed for Hollywood to restructure their business model, and reap the profits from VHS rentals. Wentworth also says that the digital age is no different as DVD's often make more money than their box office total. Though Wentworth makes some interesting points, I think that her statements leave a lot of statistical information to be desired. MPAA statistics show that the movie business is in fact suffering in the billions for online film piracy. This doesn't mean that the industry will go out of business in its entirety, but it does effect the output of films significantly. No doubt, the carbon copy superhero and animated films will still be green-lit, but it is the independent and more artistic films that will suffer.

This is a very good introduction to both economics and each of the major media industries, namely the Daily Newspaper Industry, Book and Magazine (Print) Industry, the Broadcast Networks, the Cable Industry, Hollywood, Radio, the Recording Industry, the Advertising industry and burgeoning Online Media.

This volume defines all important introductory economic concepts and terms.  It explains why most mergers are unsuccessful (pages 14, 22, 38, 82 and 234), why joint ventures are so common and profitable (page 40), and all of the individual revenue streams of each of the different mediums listed above.  This volume is accessible and very interesting.  Moreover, when read in conjunction with Baker’s two books, it helps illuminate some of his points, specifically how conglomerates can be in the best interest for consumers in some ways while simultaneously detrimental to them as well.  Namely this book gives a fair description of the state of the industry and allows one to draw his/her own conclusions.  It portrays the situation without making overtly normative judgments.