That may seem like a trick question, after all, it is internet itself that is killing the music industry. But considering the fact that people would rather purchase and download songs of services such as the Nokia Music Store, Spotify and iTunes, it is not surprising that we look into these online stores for hope in the fight against piracy.
The fight itself is pretty simple, but actually succeeding is the hard part. Everyone is pretty much aware that piracy is both a theft and a crime. Everyone knows that piracy hurts the media industry and is causing plenty of brick and mortar stores to close down. Everyone also knows that you can forgo plunking down hard cash if you decide to torrent or download music from a free, direct download site.
Just as many people continue to drive while using mobile phones, many people still continue to pirate songs.
Originally, piracy was pretty much underground and people still had lots of incentive to purchase actual products. With older media, transferring songs from one cassette tape to another meant that quality would be lost with each transfer. With digital media however, this restriction is no longer present. Albums are also losing sales. Being able to single out specific songs to purchase and download has killed off the sales of albums.
The advent of file sharing services and peer to peer file transfers has not only affected the music industry, but also movies, software, electronic publications and other paid media. Across the board, we lose billions of profit each year due to piracy.
While piracy is still a long way towards actually being able to silence the music industry, the damage caused is already pushing away new bands and talents from succeeding in the already challenging business.
Read more about piracy and its effects at Times Online UK.
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