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ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS – HOW IT IS THREATENING THE FUTURE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

File sharing has become easier and extremely common over recent years, websites such as ‘pirate bay’ and ‘limewire’ are allowing this to happen and illegal downloading to occur. For the artists and record labels this means large amounts of money is lost, if a record label has no money it cannot sign bands/artists; therefore the potential career for future artists is threatened.

This has lead to the recent introduction of the ‘Digital economy act’, which has been introduced to prevent illegal downloads and file sharing. This means that consumers who download music illegally can be caught and prosecuted.

However some argue that illegal downloading may pose advantages, some artists believe that illegal downloading gives them promotion; audiences can explore an artists music before buying, therefore drawing a wide audience. Also it can persuade audiences to spend more on live gigs.

‘Last.fm’ and ‘itunes genius’ recommends new music for you, so you don’t have to; based on the genre and artists you listen to. This therefore has become one of the top ways of discovering new music. The introduction of Twitter and blogging websites have also allowed the discovery of new music to become easier.

This has only developed in the last 20 years, this type of music sharing and music discovery did not exist in the 70’s and 80’s; new music was often played on radio stations. Although this is still popular today It is not often used compared to use of the internet.