Music Technology History

Ethical Issues in Music Technology Today

The RIAA, or The Recording Industry of America, is a United States trade group that deals with record labels and the administration and distribution of licenses and royalties of signed artists.  Members of the RIAA include the major labels earlier discussed, EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner.  Due to the growing popularity of piracy, the RIAA has taken a strict stance on copyright infringement.

Countless efforts have been made by the RIAA to limit the amount of piracy activity over illegal downloading programs.  They have used electronic web crawlers to track pirates and keep an eye out for individuals who are trading the copyrighted music.  The RIAA has attempted to create new security features on mp3s and other audio formats in order to put a brake on piracy.  In October of 2002, the RIAA sent 2,300 letters to college presidents regarding the issue of music piracy.  In the letter RIAA and its partners encouraged college across the nation treat piracy like they would if a student were to steal a book out of the university bookstore.  The letter stated, “The students and other users of your school’s network who upload and download infringing copyrighted works without permission of the owners are violating Federal copy right law,” adding, “Stealing is stealing is stealing, whether it’s done with sleight of hand by sticking something in a pocket.

An Oklahoma State University Freshman named Scott Wickberg has his own story.  Wickberg is known as one of the first people that the RIAA went after in their efforts to put an end to copyright infringement. Wickberg was caught by the RIAA during a routine patrolling of the internet.  After seeing that Wickberg had been downloading and sharing over 10,000 mp3 files, the RIAA notified the Oklahoma State University police and ordered them to monitor Wickberg’s internet activity consequently leading to the confiscation of his computer. 

At the time of the incident Scott Wickberg kept optimistic and said of his situation, “I thought I was playing by the rules. I’m not in this to make money or do any damage to anybody. I believe that if you really like an artist, you should support the artist, because those guys are trying to live off this. I was just doing this because I liked the music. Everybody else likes music, too, and everybody else is out there downloading.” He added laughing, “I guess I like music more.” 

Scott Wickberg wasn’t laughing long; as a result of his piracy the local DA arrested Wickberg on a misdemeanor charge of “unlawful advertisement or offer to distribute sound recordings.”  Wickberg was punished with two years unsupervised and deferred probation and a $5,000 fine. In addition the DA ordered Wickberg to hand in to them his computer, hard drive, monitor, and any blank compact discs that Wickberg made with any of the copyrighted material.

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The Crackdown on Pirated Music

There is a whole other side to the destined decline of CD sales.  It is obvious that iTunes is without a doubt hindering the record business and the profit isn’t as rewarding as it once was.  The threat at this point is not so much legal downloading services on the internet, such as iTunes but it is the availability of illegal downloading services on that net that poses the biggest problem.

Today, piracy is the leading reason as to why physical albums have not been selling as well as they once did.  Not only can you now share stolen mp3 files for free, but the programs used for piracy for example Napster, Lime Wire, Morpheus, and Kazaa can all be downloaded free of charge.  Free mp3 downloading services such as Napster and Lime Wire are popular because of the rising popularity of illegal file sharing and the thousands of people that participate in copyright infringement.  They do this by taking already copyrighted material and encoding it into mp3 format on their system. After the downloader has encoded the mp3 it becomes a personal file on the user’s computer, therefore they are able to share and exchange these mp3s with other users that have downloaded the program. 

About 1 billion songs are downloaded illegally per month, and there doesn’t seem to be a near end in sight.  The idea of piracy is that avid music listeners have taken control of their own means of downloading and sharing mp3 files, many of which have a similar mind set, why purchase a song when I can download it for free?  It is tempting for younger consumers because they want to obtain as much music as it takes to fill an 80 gigabyte iPod.  
 
Record companies are by far the most affected by illegal downloading, but even iTunes suffers from piracy. How?  IPod has not exactly worked out its kinks and as secure as the system may seem.  Apple has tried, but has not been 100% effective in keeping mp3 files shared through other programs out of iTunes. An example of this kind of piracy is the infamous Napster service, which is to be further explained later on.  Because Apple sells other products including phones and computer systems its top seller is their mp3 player.

There is no doubt that Apple makes money off of iTunes downloads; even if piracy occurs they are not missing out on lost revenue.  Although users are downloading music from illegal programs, and uploading then to their iPods, Apple is hardly affected by this as their mp3 continues to sell. Those who participate in piracy may get their music for free, but what people fail to realize is that most of them have already been swept up into the iPod fad, they’ve already bought the expensive mp3 player to play their stolen songs, and that’s all Apple really needs. 

By selling albums in the iTunes music store the consumer is forced to use iTunes and the Apple brand, encouraging the use of the legal service for however long they keep their mp3 player. Unlike Apple, major record labels are the ones that suffer as a direct result of piracy; it is this dilemma that is most harmful to the business and many artists today. 

Copyright infringement is illegal, and those who participate in piracy are subject to lawsuits and other consequences if caught associated with the mp3 file sharing, after all it is the primary reason for diminishing record industry sales.

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Internet Music Sharing Continues to Hurt Record Labels

Now that the significant recording mediums have been established we can consider those responsible for the actual distribution of recorded music.  Record labels were not late to jump on the bandwagon of success as the oldest brand name in recorded sound. Columbia Records, agreed to help sell and distribute Thomas Edison’s Phonograph invention back in the 1880’s.  Ever since, Columbia has set a standard and helped form an industry of highly competitive labels. Columbia today is a joint label partnering with SONY while sharing the industry spotlight with four other major record companies, Universal, EMI, BMG and Warner.
 
In the beginning, the purpose of a record label was to help give the artist maximum amount of exposure to the public.  Getting an artist’s name out there is difficult and the most important thing is to reach out to the specific demographics that find the artist most appealing.  To do that, a label’s responsibility is to distribute the artist’s music in places where it would create a buzz, for example through television, radio outlets and record stores both nationally and internationally.
 
Today, in addition to creating artist buzz through television and radio mediums we have started to see that many artists are being promoted through the internet.  This is detrimental to music companies because the majority of the profit that they make is through the physical albums they sell.  If people are downloading mp3s via internet, through iTunes or any other mp3 downloading service, then labels are not selling physical CDs in stores. 

It makes sense to zero in on CD sales over the past five years as the internet is a relatively new medium, and the effect it has on annual record sales is the most evident during this time. 
Physical CD sales have been in decline over the past 5 years, and according to various estimates they are expected to fall another 15%-20% again this year. 

In the past 5 years, legally downloaded music has been responsible for 15 percent of the world’s music sales.   Many labels have had no other choice but to make deals with mp3 service providers in order to profit off their own signed artists.  Record companies face a dilemma: They want to take advantage of the Internet as a delivery system, but they don’t want to risk torpedoing the existing sales model, which has been highly lucrative over the years.      

Although record labels do make a profit off of legal piracy-free services such as iTunes, they only make a percentage of actual albums bought by iPod users.  Granted they are making money, but not nearly as much as if the albums were being purchased in Virgin Records or any other popular music retailer. 

Unfortunately, many entertainment consumers who use iTunes music store are downloading more individual singles over entire albums and at .99 cents a song; you can imagine it would be difficult for a label to survive on single sales alone.  Leverage single sales as a segue to introduce new artists and promote concert ticket sales, merchandise sales, ringtone sales, are just a few of the sales strategies record labels are using today.

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The iPod Changes the Recording Industry for Consumers

The most widely used mp3 player is of course the iPod which was introduced by Apple in 2001.  Seven plus generations of iPod later, not only is music available but movies, games and photo slideshows also make up the popular device. 

The iPod is made by Apple, but what makes the medium so user friendly is that it is compatible to windows so therefore those who do not own Macs can still use the service.  Going back to mp3s being computer based, every iPod “lives” inside of your computer on a program known as iTunes.  Every music file is backed up in the iTunes Library so that in the event an iPod is lost or stolen, the music you’ve purchased isn’t. 

The iPod has distinguished itself amongst other mp3 music players and all other modern recording mediums as the iTunes program includes the iTunes store allowing users to download music (.99 cents per song in many cases) without ever leaving their computer seat.  Not can a listener obtain singles, but iTunes offers full albums at $9.99 per album, considerably cheaper then purchasing a CD from a music store.  

In the past five years iPod and iTunes sales have been at a record high.  Many record companies are still monetizing with Apple selling singles via iTunes as they own the rights to the music.  The issue many record labels have is individuals using iPods to store illegally downloaded music as many iPods have large hard drives.  Record labels will continue to fight on behalf of the artists they represent making sure they have exposure on the internet while being able to monetize from music downloads.

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The MP3 Music Revolution

The idea of the mp3 was presented in the 80’s but did not start to become popular until the first mp3 player was released in 1999.  An mp3 is a music file that is compressed in order to fit through the narrow passages of an internet wave; this allows multiple users to share their downloaded files.   The mp3 is not a surprising development as it was only a matter of time before the computer took over music in addition to everything else.   The downside of the mp3 revolution is file sharing.  In turn, this has assisted in the loss of revenue for many record labels, even forcing some to go out of business.  Some listeners argue that the sound quality of an mp3 is sacrificed on a small scale, but easy accessibility via the internet is enough to dismiss this minor flaw. 

One billion mp3 files are traded every month through the use of the internet and to the dismay of record labels.  Download ratings are continuing to sky rocket.  Apple iTunes has helped many artists continue to sell singles and albums for listeners to place on their iPod.  Many listeners realize that there are ramifications for sharing and hosting music illegally or without the consent of the artist.  Many file sharing networks of the past have been effected by law suits and artists coming forward to stop illegal music sharing.  Today, illegal music files continue to hurt record sales.  Artists now have to get creative to show their value to record companies and subsidize using internet marketing methods or even selling ringtones. 

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The Compact Disk Player Enhances The Quality of Recorded Music

Following the audio cassette several other inventions were presented in hopes to further improve on the audio cassette, but nothing caught on quite like Sony and Philips release of the compact disc or “CD” in 1982.    Compact discs were not only as portable as the audio cassette, but had sound quality that superseded it.  Although records and cassettes were still bought and sold throughout the 90’s, they were merely collector’s items. 

CDs inevitably put an end to bad sound quality and for the most part listeners could hear their music without the imperfection of skips and cracks on the track. Friendly for everyone, the CD player was even stylistically appropriate for women.  Women in particular liked the early CD players because they fitted in with the minimalist chic of the 1980s, while the sight of sprawling gatefold record sleeves became associated with down market, sweaty-socked bachelordom.”

It wasn’t long before CD-R and CD-RW came into the picture making it possible for listeners to burn their very own compact disc.  Like many advancements, the compact disc was developed as a result of the imperfections presented by its earlier form, the record.  The CD was created not only to improve sound quality but also make it so that its physical makeup withheld the test of time. 

After continued use of a record, wear and tear would occur so much that overtime the quality of the record deteriorated.  Without having needle-groove contact like the record, the CD player used light to read what was on the surface of the disc avoiding any possibility that the CD be worn or overplayed.

Just when people thought listening to music couldn’t get any better than CDs, it did; and this is where the internet comes into play.  Music has not only become more accessible to us, but it has become hassle free and more convenient.  Music is literally getting lighter. Twenty years ago, helping a musically inclined friend move meant wrestling with multiple 50-pound boxes of vinyl albums. Ten years ago, those same cardboard boxes labeled “Music” contained compact discs in plastic jewel boxes–and weighed half as much.  In five years your friend may hand you a 1-ounce hard drive holding day’s worth of music and say, “Take this out to the car and don’t drop it. Those are my tunes.”

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