Media in the 21st Century – Music, Profitability and Piracy

With the invention of new technologies, the music industry has had to (and continues to) adapt to ensure that it continues to be profitable and does not lose out to music piracy.

Man of the technological advancements over the past 30 or so years can be seen as the industry attempting to ‘get around’ piracy (depending, of course, from what perspective you look at it from).  When people were able to record music off the radio onto cassettes, CDs came out. Then, when you could burn your own CDs, downloadable music came around. Now, when music can be downloaded illegally, it’s fashionable to buy vinyl records though most people don’t – because they’re both ‘vintage’ and stylish they’re incredibly expensive.

Of course, you could argue that people in the music industry could offer their music for free, like it is on spotify and other sites, and make money through advertising, merchandising and gigs. In many respects, this creates a sort of historical loop as, in the past, you could not listen to music at home and had to pay to watch performances which was the only way in which musicians made money.

However, what the industry tends to worry about is that in doing this, no-one would buy CDs or other music platforms anymore. Saying this, they have been continually predicting that these platforms would die out over the years in much the same way people have been predicting the end of the world – with no evidence or success.

For now, at least, the music industry continues to triumph (generally speaking) over piracy with a multitude of different platforms.

What do you think? Do you prefer downloads or owning physical copies of your music? Leave a comment.