Music is the reflection of a person’s mood, personality and culture. Music dominates and shapes the culture of today, and the ways to listen to music are evolving with the times. Long gone are the days of CDs and other physical copies of music. Online music is the most efficient way to collect and discover favorite artists and songs.
Apple’s iTunes paved the road for all online music. Apple created a way for consumers to purchase single songs and organize playlists of music. Rather than making the consumer buy an artist’s entire album, iTunes charges $0.99 to $1.29, depending on the popularity, for each song.
However, illegal music download sites such as FrostWire, LimeWire and Napster rose in popularity just as quickly as iTunes. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) reports, “In the decade since peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.7 billion.”
Additionally, the RIAA concludes that, “global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost and a loss of $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings…” These staggering statistics prove an overwhelming problem in the music industry.
Online music streaming may be the solution to address the problem of music piracy. Popular streaming sites such as Spotify and Pandora present a new approach to music listening. Consumers are presented with an almost unlimited amount of music at their fingertips, ready to be discovered.
Both Pandora and Spotify are free with advertisements, and both can be upgraded with a monthly payment to remove advertisements. Music becomes instantly accessible as long as the listener has an internet connection, and streaming offers unlimited storage of music.
Streaming services have helped artists rise more quickly to recognition because new music is so easy to discover on the sites. As stated in a brief by the LSE Media Project, “declining sales of recorded music were offset by increasing revenue from live performances and growing digital revenues, including streaming services.”
Spotify has quickly risen to the top of the streaming services. The site offers social interaction with friends and favorite artists while generating music suggestions tailored for each listener.
Paul Resnikoff, founder and publisher of Digital Music News, is quoted as saying, “Spotify’s goal is to grow a service which people love, ultimately want to pay for and which will provide the financial support to the music industry necessary to invest in new talent and music. We want to help artists connect with their fans, find new audiences, grow their fan base and make a living from the music which we all love.”
Today’s music industry continues to hurdle quickly toward the streaming services. Online connectivity is constant, and owning a music file is nearing pointlessness. Streaming offers a cheaper alternative to iTunes while also helping put an end to illegal music downloads. This generation is more interested and educated in music than ever before, and online music streaming is becoming one of the best ways to listen to music.
