File Sharing & Music Industry

File Sharing & Music Industry

Music History & Advent of Peer-to-Peer File Sharing

History

Perhaps no other decade in history has contributed as much to the growth of the music industry as the 1990's, the digital decade. One thing that fascinates me is the Internet's power to innovate, create and distribute new ideas to millions of people around the globe. What am I talking about? MP3s. [1] Although MP3 is not a new format it is the fastest growing file format on the Internet. MP3s are music files that are converted from a normal CD audio file but in a lot smaller size; which means that this "...digital compression system can squeezes a compact disc file down to a size that easily transmitted over the Internet." (Haring) Audio tracks from CD's can be recoded on a hard drive or a CD and be played as any times without the quality fading. You can download MP3 players for free on the web and now they are playable in handheld devices, cars, and elsewhere, almost everywhere. Consumers are going digital; they're also going online. As with most new technologies, the Internet doesn't just draw outside the lines of the music industry it offers the opportunity for revolutionary changes. But even in this new digital world, artists and record companies still have and deserve the right to protect their own music. Many of the same laws apply in cyberspace such as copyright, and new measures that were brought into in the last few years to address issues that could not have been identified. Yet, MP3's still cause a commotion in both the digital world and the present day. [2] The most apparent cause of this problem is the lag of legislation against the rapid rise of technology. Furthermore, most the record industry and the artists have brought in this problem by themselves by costly CDs and being greedy. Also I will cover the controversial issue over copyrights laws and what brought it to be such a big problem. Lastly I will go over the pros and cons of MP3s and what's in its future.

So are we moving too fast into the future? Technology has been rising at speeds that are out of this world. With each year coming out with better and newer technology, more and more legislation is brought upon to control the outbreak of technology. But it seems as though these legislations are not keeping problems off the Internet. [3] The lack of regulations on the Internet and the rise of more computer literate people have caused legislation to be on a lower level than the technology level. To look at this problem furthermore, we have to look at the history of technology and of the Internet. In connection, we have to view the current legislations on the Internet and the problems posing to the issue of why legislation so much behind technology.

The Internet was not recognized until the early 1990's. Not many knew what the Internet was before the ...