Music Industry v. Technology

The rapid growth of technology has often enjoyed a positive outlook by consumers and business. One of the main industries that has often spoke out against aspects of technology they deemed as damaging to their business was the music industry. The music tycoons accused technology of giving birth to the age of piracy; the illegal downloading of music through shared files on the internet. Through the use of P2P (Peer to Peer) programs people are able to “share” music with all other users on the internet; never having to pay a dime.

The music industry was obviously upset about this because they claimed that every time someone was downloading a song it was a loss of a sale for them. That seems to make logical sense to me. If one has the following options which are they more likely to choose?

A) Buy a whole album because you like one song on it

B) Buy the one song you like an maybe one other on iTunes for 99 cents. (now they have made more popular songs $1.29… Pushing to piracy if you ask me)

C) Use a P2P program to download your song for free (a dollar saved is a dollar earned)

d) Use a P2P program to download any song or album you want.. for free

It would appear as though the music industry would be doomed after a short matter of time. The recent closing of the Virgin Megastore in NYC would appear to serve as evidence in the music industry’s case against piracy and technology. HOWEVER, a recent study by two economists from Harvard and the University of Kansas contest the claim that downloading music is hurting the industry. They argue that the lax copy write laws are even desirable so long as they don’t damage incentives for artists. The increase in music production, artists, albums and other measurable elements seem to say that everything is going just fine. Thus, onward and upward with technology. More gadgets, more gizmos. Wireless everything, digital copies, uploading, file sharing, remote access, video conferencing, The TNS Group, IT services, etc. Even if it means all rappers have the same beats made from the same little machine creating fake sound. I think we can live with that as the side effects.