Many claim in today’s new media world that the internet is killing the Music Industry. This is a hot topic across web forums, blogs and websites as well as official and industrial websites as the internet continues to expand at a rapid pace, leaving law and economics behind.

In a simple Google search with key words “Music Industry Internet” 2, 810, 000  search results were received, all discussing the pressing subject of peer to peer downloading and the lack of law enforcement that surrounds such an increasing trend.

The first result was an article from The Age entitled: “Music industry v internet: the fat lady has sung” by G. Barker dated August 30, 2003. It discusses the move of the Industry into the Internet as it begins to embrace the Internet as an online store. It is clear this article was written at least 5 years ago, but continues to have the most hits today. In 2003, iTunes Music Store was only accessible in North America and was a relatively new addition. It can be seen here how quickly the Music Industry is adapting to the Internet as a source for output, even if it is a decade or so late.

A more recent article from The Sydney Morning Herald dated May 27, 2009 looks into illegal downloading and the Australian market for illegal downloading sites.  Asher Moses in his article “Illegal downloads soar as hard times bite” says that hundreds of thousands more Australians have turned to downloading music illegally to save money in our current financial crisis. Downloading sites such as Minova and The Pirate Bay have had a massive increase in hits by 33%, and this doesn’t include peer to peer programs such as Limewire.

Moses then goes on to explain how the Music and Film industry is continuing to battle on as legal downloading sites such as iTunes still aren’t covering the physical disc sale drop. This in turn puts more pressure on the governments and legislature to do more to prevent online privacy.

Music is a popular topic on blog forums, with over 300 million hits on Search Engines Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves. However, only a small amount of these blogs delve into the discussion of the Music Industry’s future with the Internet. Music blog site “Music Think Tank” hosts hundreds of blogs discussing the Music Industry, online music behavior and industry announcements.  The blogs also update readers with statistics from the digital music industry;  “Last year, U.S. consumers purchased 844 million individual songs, according to Nielsen SoundScan. By contrast, they bought only 50 million digital albums. Most of these transactions took place on iTunes” Insight into the deteriorating Music Market and the slow changes that the Music Industry is making. In another blog, “P2P BLOG.COM” one blog discusses Limewire’s recent change to include a music store, replicating that of the iTunes music store with singles at a price of 99c. The general feedback from this was that it was a good move for independent artists, however a bad move by Limewire as it’s essential use is to share files illegally.

The general feedback is that the online community is not entirely fussed with the Music Industry; they acknowledge the trials that they are undergoing but are more interested in their own free access to music. There is a general consensus that the Music Industry has acted too late and is moving too slowly to rectify the situation, and that the internet is the blame for this sudden upheaval.

 G. Barker, “Music industry v internet: the fat lady has sung”, The Age, August 30, 2003, Accessed 20 August, 2009, http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/29/1062050669379.html

A. Moses, “Illegal downloads soar as hard times bite”, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 27, 2009, Accessed 20 August, 2009, http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/illegal-downloads-soar-as-hard-times-bite/2009/05/27/1243103577467.html

*No Author*, 2008, “Digital Music Sales Trends”, Accessed 20 August, 2009, http://www.musicthinktank.com/mtt-stats/digital-music-sales-trends.html

Roettgoers, 2008, “Limewire Launches Music Download Store”, Accessed 20 August 2009, http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-552.html