iTunes and The Digital Music Industry On April 28, 2003 Apple revolutionized the music industry by creating the iTunes Music Store. For the first time consumers were able to purchase digital music that was immediately ready for download onto their iPod mp3 players. However, since the start songs downloaded from iTunes have protected by a digital rights management (DRM) scheme known as fair play. Soon after Apple opened their store several other companies opened competing stores, each with their own unique DRM scheme. Most DRM schemes automatically assume that the consumer will try to illegally share music and enforce rules to prevent this. Apple restricts back up copies by only letting the song be copied to seven computers. They also restrict the file format to their proprietary ACC which makes iPods the only compatible device. Perhaps the most interesting restriction is that Apple reserves the right to change at any time what you can do with your music. They have already exercised this right by reducing the number of copies from ten to seven several years ago [1]. There are several competitors who have modeled their distribution after Apple. However, Napster 2.0 takes a very different stance on digital music distribution. They charge customers a monthly subscription fee and allow users to stream and download as much music as they want. However, if customers want to copy music to their mp3 player, or burn songs to a CD, they music pay extra. Napster also uses Microsoft's WMA format for their DRM scheme which makes Napster incompatible with the iPod. Both Apple and Napster are United States based companies and therefore must abide by our laws. However, a Russian website called allofmp3.com offers DRM free music.... ... middle of paper ... ... technologies, but a huge potential for profit exists if they leveraged their vast amounts of data into an online music store. Smaller, independent music companies are currently reaching out to last.fm to discuss this very idea. The future of digital music has many hurdles to overcome. Right now users are locked into a store and m3p player combination that allows the consumer no freedom of choice. While some record companies are exploring the concept of releasing DRM free music, the reality is that for the foreseeable future, DRM is here to stay. However, steps can be taken to open up DRM schemes and allow users the fair use rights that have been previously established by the United States government. Several companies are also exploring Web 2.0 concepts that could truly revolutionize the music industry and forever change how we listen to and discover new music.
An “analyst” was quoted in the case (in 2002) as saying that “people will pay for music on the Internet, eventually.” This person was skeptical of the willingness of consumers to pay for
This paper describes various forms of DRM (Digital Rights Management), the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), and methods of bypassing the afore mentioned subjects. Different forms of transmission of DRM protected material also has a direct relationship with what kind of files are protected by the DMCA and will be discussed. This paper will also discuss how law makers are attempting to halt illegal music sharing and how these attempts are in vain.
Most recently the Supreme Court had to decide whether it was fair or not for music fans to download their favorite songs free of any royalties to the artists. The program, design by two college students, is named Napster and its designed to allow the sharing of mp3 music files over the Internet. Currently, the program is still available and operating with much support from its users.
• There is pressure on Apple to increase the price of its music download file, from the music industry itself. Many of these companies make more money from iTunes (i.e. downloadable music files) than from their original CD sales. Apple has sold about 22 million iPod digital music players and more than 500 million songs though its iTunes music store. It accounts for 82% of all legally downloaded music in the US. The company is resolute, but if it gives in to the music producers, it may be perceived as a commercial weakness.
Spotify’s Time. (n.d.). Music Business Journal Berklee College of Music RSS. Retrieved May 21, 2014, from http://www.thembj.org/2014/05/spotifys-time/
So why are people like Metallica and Dr. Dre so angry with Napster? One reason, unrelated to record sales, is that Napster offers unperfected versions of unreleased songs that these artists do not want released until they are completed.
When the online music sharing industry was evolving there were a lot of opportunities for great innovation but there was also opportunity for laws to be broken. In 1999, a music sharing website called Napster was founded that raised a lot of ethical issues ...
There are two main key issues when dealing with Apple's digital music player market. The first issue consists of Apple maintaining its digital music player market share. The second issue pertains to whether or not Apple has a niche music player by not licensing its technology. Apple has a substantial market share consisting of 60% of the digital music player market when only 11% of the U.S. population owns digital devices. In order for Apple to maintain its major role in the digital player market it must consistently maintain its innovativeness over other digital music players in the industry. Apple not licensing their technology and creating a niche music player could hurt them in a market where consumers may want to use their device to its full potential.
...en the biggest hurdles the music industry has overcome. Thanks to iTunes and Google Music record labels and artist can reach almost anyone in the world with their music and know that their work won’t be infringed upon. In the next five years copyrights will still have the respect it has today. As technology moves along copyrights will be right behind it revising the rules and regulations to make sure that an artist intellectual property is safe and that the artist or label can receive compensatory damages for copyright infringement.
According to the text A Gift of Fire, Napster “opened on the Web in 1999 as a service that allowed its users to copy songs in MP3 files from the hard disks of other users” (Baase, 2013, p. 192, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The Napster Case). Napster was, however, “copying and distributing most of the songs they traded without authorization” (A Gift of Fire, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The Napster Case). This unauthorized file sharing resulted in a lawsuit - “eighteen record companies sued for contributory infringement claiming that Napster users were blatantly infringing copyrights by digitally reproducing and distributing music without a license” (Communications Law: Liberties, Restraints and the Modern Media, 2011, p. 359).
Over time the form in which we listen to our music has drastically evolved. Going from vinyl records, to tapes, to CDs, to mp3 downloads, and most recently instant streaming. Although technology becoming more advanced has helped our society to grow, the music industry has found it difficult to grow and advance with the change while still being profitable. Starting with tapes people would share their music, making mixed tapes for their friends or family. This continued when artists started putting their albums onto CD’s. It was easy for anyone to get a great new album for free as long as they had one copy of the album. This is called pirating music, it is violating an artist's rights which are secured by a copyright (the free dictionary). Pirating
The story really begins with Napster and its free software that allowed users to swap music across the Internet for free using peer-to-peer networks. While Shawn Fanning was attending Northeastern University in Boston, he wanted an easier method of finding music than by searching IRC or Lycos. John Fanning of Hull, Massachusetts, who is Shawn's uncle, struck an agreement which gave Shawn 30% control of the company, with the rest going to his uncle. Napster began to build an office and executive team in San Mateo, California, in September of 1999. Napster was the first of the massively popular peer-to-peer file sharing systems, although it was not fully peer-to-peer since it used central servers to maintain lists of connected systems and the files they provideddirectories, effectivelywhile actual transactions were conducted directly between machines. Although there were already media which facilitated the sharing of files across the Internet, such as IRC, Hotline, and USENET, Napster specialized exclusively in music in the form of MP3 files and presented a user-friendly interface. The result was a system whose popularity generated an enormous selection of music to download. Napster became the launching pad for the explosive growth of the MP3 format and the proliferation of unlicensed copyrights.
Music on the Internet is another big issue among consumers and the artists that compose them. Napster was the biggest site for downloading mp3’s, but was shutdown because of a big push by the rock group Metallica.
Many well-known artists including Taylor Swift are against Spotify and have her music catalogue removed from Spotify, because by letting people listen to your music for free you undermine the value of art. But Taylor Swift is one of not so many artists that could pull such thing off and still remain popular. After all, her removing her catalogue from Spotify was a huge scandal and one of the most important happenings during the last year in the music industry. This move of hers affects Spotify in a bad way, as she was one of the most popular artists on spotify and her songs were on 19 million playlists. It is also thought that taking her music catalogue from Spotify could be related with her own record label, Big Machine’s sale. As instant income from digital music download could be financially more beneficial, and increase value for her record label more than, “steady streaming” income. But for such popular artists like Taylor Swift, such streaming model earns millions. According to Spotify real life artist who wasn’t named was earning $425,000, per month for a hit album that was on top charts. And that category surely
To conclude, digital music has become a large asset the music business. Music downloads continue to grow rapidly but so does the traditional distribution channels like cds and vinyl’s. It seems that people have their own personal preferences when it comes to music purchases. Whereas some people would prefer cds, others prefer having their music collection on a small music player or an app on their phone where they can stream instant music. There are issues when it comes to music piracy but laws and incentives are put into place to stop this and try to protect the music business. The future of music will continue with streaming, purchasing downloads, cds and vinyls until another revolutionary idea is created.