Impact of IT in the Music Industry - Essay Example

Impact of IT in the Music Industry Table of Contents Introduction 3 Current of IT in music industry 3 Impact of IT on Music industry 4 Technologies used to stay competitive in this industry 6 SoundCloud 7 Works Cited 8 Bibliography 9 Name of student: Name of Professor: Course Number: Date of Paper: Impact of IT in the Music Industry Introduction The music industry is the only one to have encountered difficulties while earning considerable profit in the digital era. The new communication technology has made a huge impact on the customers of music. It has also impacted the way music is availed by the consumers. It is observed that the industry lacks capital investment, which has hindered successful transition of the industry into a new model in the present information age. However, information technology (IT) has brought revolutionary changes to the music industry. The newly evolved techniques are employed to produce and circulate music globally. The impact of IT has been felt for a long period of time and its success has gradually motivated the music industry to implement the new technologies for production of higher quality music (Tschmuck 227). IT has influenced the music industry in three main ways: programs related to music production, music websites (like, You Tube) and downloads. Hence, the changes can be easily recognised. The current research paper highlights on development and impact of IT on the music industry. The paper also details the current application of Information Technology in the music industry (Tschmuck 227). Current state of IT in music industry The music industry can be segmented into three sections: music publishing, recording and live performance (Jone 10). These three segments have experienced a large number of changes with the advent of technologies. In order to realize the changes undergone by the music industry, it is important to examine the technological developments. It is observed that online music services are surrounded by media convergence, digitalisation and web 2.0. Jenkins (2004) had regarded media convergence as a modified relationship between the industries, existing technologies and audiences. The digital media convergence is driven by the operation of web 2.0, which is believed to be “the key technology in web development” (Wiechmann 7). The media convergence has facilitated communication, participation as well as disclosure of economic and social opportunities to a business for capitalising on its electronic communities. The advancement in technologies has rendered consumers and artists independent in context of recording and distributing music in the industry (Wiechmann 8; Barnet and Burriss 125). Impact of IT on Music industry The impact of IT on the music industry has been detailed below. 1) Impact of IT on the interaction between the suppliers and consumers of music: With the collapse of Napster in 2001, famous online file sharing services, there had been huge rise in illegal services. The key effect of this situation can be highlighted as changes in the habits of music lovers. These illegal services created a bad impression on the consumers and they are not interested to pay any amount of money for purchasing music CD or DVD or cassettes. As a result, the term “free download” has presently become the main mantra in the music industry (Barnet and Burriss 125). The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has stated that “the sale of music dropped from US $37 billion in 2000 to dropped to US$32 billion in 2003” (Viet, "The Impact of ICT Developments on the Music Industry (2001- 2009)). Figure 1: Fall in global sales of music (Source: Viet "The Impact of ICT Developments on the Music Industry (2001- 2009)) The figure presented above indicates the drastic fall in sales of music from 2000 to 2003. The recession had affected the music industry to a great extent. The online sharing services had come under focus since this period of time and the distributors, composers and artists has in turn been affected by this platform of music sharing (Barnet and Burriss 125). Until 2001, the distribution process of music had followed three particular steps: recording of music with the help of music artists and launch of new music albums, these albums were distributed among the third party distributors (like, music stores) and finally, the consumers purchased their choice of music from the stores. Nonetheless, 2001 onwards, changes great number of changes crept into the music industry. These changes that affected the music industry are listed below: 1) Downloading music: Presently, it is observed that consumers do not prefer to buy cassettes or DVDs or CDs in order to listen to their favourite music bands or albums. Rather, they prefer downloading the albums from the internet. This change in preference has originated from development of technologies. Technologies used to compress audio data into light weight MP3 format, without compromising on initial quality of the music, have encouraged individuals to share collections of music over internet (Wiechmann 7-10; Barnet and Burriss 125). As a consequence, pirated illegal music has surfaced, which has appeared to trigger a conflict between record labels and consumers. The revenues from sales of music albums have declined significantly, which have even forced the shutdown of a number of retail stores. The change in technology also affected the relationship between the record labels and singers. With the closure of recoding business, live performances gained importance and have become one of the main sources of earning money for the artists. Consequently, record companies have to suffer high losses by way of losing several record contracts as the singers relied more on the sponsors of music. In addition to the above mentioned challenges, the music industry also encountered the phenomenon of streaming music. With increase in use of computer, the consumers preferred to listen to music on their computers. The development in technology has increased the number of web-based services that are supported by powerful network infrastructure. Presently, music streaming has become very popular and as a result, the providers of streaming services have launched platforms such as, YouTube. These platforms have changed the taste and preferences among target market of the music industry. 2) Impact of IT on music marketing: The development of IT has also affected the marketing aspect of the music industry. The growth of internet in the first phase of 21st century had established a promising market comprising millions of potential consumers of music. Music marketing highlights on the fact that music artists are able to avail multiple powerful tools for approaching their listeners worldwide. Over the last 10 years, there have been considerable changes in the way in which performers approached their listeners. The mediums like, live performance, record labels and concerts, acted as the conventional bridge facilitating communication between the listeners and music composers. With the emergence of internet, the scenarios have changed drastically. The tendency to stream music had caused a decline in revenue. The real time data collected from the social network sites such as, MySpace and YouTube, were analysed by the music artists and record labels. From the investigation, the record labels were able to realize the favourite genre of music of consumers and sites that are preferred the most. This helped the record labels and music artists to frame appropriate solutions. The performers or music artists used their personal websites as well as statistical tools for analyzing the type of music that was played and number of times that these tracks were used for multiple purposes. This information helped the record labels and the music artists to devise strategies in order to promote the leading music tracks, in terms of consumers’ preference or number of plays (Viet "The Impact of ICT Developments on the Music Industry (2001- 2009)). Technologies used to stay competitive in this industry Though there has been a drastic decline in growth of sales in the music industry, yet few positive aspects of this scenario can be highlighted. The market for music reflected numerous modifications and this change as a whole has been examined very minutely by the record labels for devising strategies (Barnet and Burriss 125). These strategies helped the record labels to understand the changing taste and preferences of the consumers and their nature of devotion towards music. In order to stay competitive in an environment comprising a sea of technical advances, the music companies chose to employ internet as their main source of income. The music companies presently earn money as per number of views of the songs on a certain website. An example of such a company is cited below, which has incorporated IT for the development of their business. SoundCloud SoundCloud has created a democratic and simple platform by using technology effectively. The company has become so popular in their business that they have been able to penetrate 50% of the total music industry. It is observed that about 10 million people employ services of the company because of its commendable online presence. SoundCloud had received more than 10000 applications for consumer’s use and music production (Viet "The Impact of ICT Developments on the Music Industry (2001- 2009)). The best aspect of the company is that the artists upload their music on the website through a specific URL. The company allows the sound files to be embedded in other social websites like, Facebook and Twitter. The registered users of SoundCloud are given license to listen to unlimited music as well as to download around 100 songs from the website. SoundCloud also gives permission to the musician users for uploading about 120 minutes audio in their profile (Barnet and Burriss 125). It is noticed that the company uploads about 12 hours of audio on the website every minute. Even so, a majority of the content are split between mainstream music composers and small-scale musicians. The company also utilizes applications and widgets for distributing its music. The users have the option to place a widget on their blogs or websites, which allows SoundCloud to tweet automatically after the track is uploaded. All these features have encouraged the company and its users to balance the change brought about by technological development, without harming the music industry. Works Cited Barnet, Richard and Larry Burriss. Controversies of the music industry. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2001. Print. Jone, Michael. The music industries: from conception to consumption. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2012. Print. Tschmuck, Peter. Creativity and innovation in the music industry. New York: Springer. 2012. Print. Viet, Hoang. "The Impact of ICT Developments on the Music Industry (2001- 2009)." Web log post. The Impact of ICT Developments on the Music Industry, 16 Mar. 2011. Web. 26 June 2014. Wiechmann, Daniel. The Impact of Online Music Services on the Music Recording Industry Opportunities and Challenges. München: GRIN Verlag, 2009. Print. Bibliography Bernstein, Arthur and Dick Weissman. The Global Music Industry: Three Perspectives. New York: Routledge. 2013. Print. OECD. The Economic Impact of Counterfeiting and Piracy. New York: OECD Publishing. 2008. Print. Wikström, Patrik. The music industry: music in the cloud. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 2014. Print. Read More