Music

On balance, what are the biggest challenges and benefits to the music industries that come from digital communication and distribution?

Challenges:

Due to illegal downloads, there is a decrease in the sale of physical audio.

Copyright issues

Peer to peer sharing

Since music is linked to social network, contents has the ability to go viral in a short span of time. 

Music has a low reproduction cost of music and distribution.

Digital distribution equal quick and easy downloads, so if I hear something that I like, I can have in on my PC in no time, free or paid for.

The power of social networks and online music communities is increasing as word of mouth has become a powerful promotional tool and the digitized files can be easily be shared online and this enables viral promotion of both professional and amateur recordings equally.

Online we get more information about music previews, video previews, interviews and promotions.

Fans can interact easily with creators through their personal accounts.

Benefits: Digital communication leads to an increase in the visibility and knowledge of audience

Do current laws adequately address the affordances of digital media (ie do they account for what web media can actually do compared to analog media forms 20 years ago)?

Yes, to some extent.

P2P networks are almost impossible to monitor for individual copyright breaches due to the decentralized nature which developed after the case of Napster.

In comparison 20 years ago in the analog era music could be shared by the recording of a tape however much like the Star trek video tape example given by Tama in the film lecture, the quality quickly degraded with each generation of recording. This is because nowadays, there is many tutorials available online to help amateur create good quality production.

Is radio a dying form in the face of iPods, iPhones and a million other devices capable of playing personalised musical playlists?

The number of people listening to radio is eventually decreasing but radio is not a dying form yet as with the advent of digital radio and stations being able to specialize more to suit the audience, radio will always have a place in people’s lives especially for news, sport and as a background distraction.

People are more exposed to different cultures and prefer certain types of music and hence they would listen download and listen to their favourite music on their iPods or iPhones and other devices.