29th August 2008 - by Atomsri Sukpo
Music Download: A Boon or a Bane?
It was once considered to be the killer of the world's
music enterprise. But now it has become the forerunner of the
industry that once hated it. The transition was as fast as you
can play a single MP3 on your music player. But before you can
play it, you have to download it first.
A few years back, the music industry had its slump, what with
this so called "illegal sharing and distribution of copyright".
Many times they have sued companies that develop file sharing
engines (or peer-to-peer sharing) like Kazaa and Limewire,
among others. Yet they lose time and again. It's either that
the law is loose on music downloading or the authorities are
not ready to incriminate the millions of people who download
music over the internet. The truth is you can't blame file
sharing softwares because as the adage goes, "it is only a
means to an end." While they blatantly do their business-which
is to let people share whatever file they want to share-they
don't actually promote illegal activities that would violate
any law. It is still up to the users.
Let's put it this way. If bank robbers used a sports car like
Porsche as a getaway vehicle after robbing a bank, would the
authorities blame the carmaker because the car is so fast they
failed to catch the criminals?
With the case of music downloads, it is slightly different.
Because even if they can catch people who download stuff from
the internet, they just could not persecute them. These are the
same people who go to record stores to buy CDs and DVDs, the
same persons who buy front row concert tickets to watch their
favorite artists live. For them, downloading is not a crime,
but an evolution of music. It took the music industry some
years to realize that digital music is indeed the future of the
music industry. And while there are still file sharing
softwares out there-not to mention some web sites where you can
directly download music files for free- record companies made a
bold move to keep up with the modern times. Now they have their
own music portals where people can get free music samplers or
pay a reasonable amount for newly released singles from
different albums from their favorite artists. They even partner
with some music player manufacturers like Ipod.
Music downloading soared to greater heights, bringing the music
industry back to the top. There are even artists like Coldplay
who release their music in digital format weeks before their
albums come out.
This is how the music industry "rolls" these days. No more
blaming, no more suing-just good music all year round. It
doesn't matter whether people buy CDs or download MP3s. In the
end, everyone benefits-the people, the artists and the record
companies. The good thing is that downloads now form part of
the total sales of any music record. After all, music is there
to be heard and shared.
Article Source:
http://www.megamusicsite.com
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