Has Music Streaming Changed The Industry?

There was a moment in the mid-2000s when it looked all but certain music lovers would be gathering their favorite hits and tunes, one by one, disc by disc in a never-ending cycle and this was seen as acceptable.

Yet in the midst lurking around, the music industry had no idea what was about to come: internet connections. Towards the end of the 2000s, internet speeds took a huge leap as faster speeds became the norm. More info was saved by hard drives on more tiny spaces, affordable with little or next to nothing prices and tunes were simpler more than ever to locate. It was not difficult to imagine music streaming became a music lover’s perfect dream.

The first iPod, which was discontinued after only 13 years, seems as old-timely as Sony’s Walkman cassette and cd player’s, which survived more than 30 odd years now. However, its been widely reported digital record sales were down nearly 10 percent in 2014 and the recovery is unlikely to hear a rallying call in 2015.

This is simply because more music fans are simply turning to free, advertising-supported and paid-subscription streaming services that provide immediate access to endless music libraries that would make the wildest fantasies of the iPod user look tame.

This is definitely no accident. Apple’s entry into the streaming marketplace is not the sign that the world is prepared for streaming music; it is evidence that the transition has started.

So during the following week, as instead of waiting to see when iTunes will start its assault on established streaming service powers like Spotify, we are going to analyze the world of streaming music that’s upon us in a show called Streaming At The Tipping Point.

The issue of cash — or royalties — is an important one to the existence of the recording business.  streaming music has unlocked other questions that were new for the enthusiast and musician alike: of ownership, of taste, and of morality. When we’ve got endless choices, do we listen otherwise? Is it true that the growth of the service that is streaming gets rid of the very requirement for a library of one’s own, or does it only change how we socialize with that library and get? Do your musical inclinations belong to you personally? What part do listeners play in ensuring the support of musicians as well as the life of music?

For a big portion of the recording business, the move to adopt streaming really solves a long time paradox: one of possession. Over digital music’s 30-year development, from the public launch of the compact disc in 1981 to the international growth of Spotify in the final half-decade, the issue of whether the music they bought was possessed by listeners got murkier.

At an earlier age, there was no such question — purchasing a vinyl record meant you can listen to the music until you grew a fresh group of ears, filed it away eternally or wore it outside and snapped the old disc in half.

Call the CD — as well as the digital files it so included, the sources of the essential rift between labels and listeners — the digital infection. Once you can strip a tune from its real house and make a copy (or many copies), that control appeared to indicate possession. The fight against that principle of the recording industry took on the type of intrusive digital rights management applications, advertising campaigns, threats, and suits. You were not purchasing the music itself when you bought a tune or an album, it said, only the right to listen to it. But the electronic format has gone airborne, the MP3, turned this germ into a pandemic.

Streaming the label-sanctioned variant sets back the genie in the bottle. Possession is not even an alternative. Your license, in the event, you would like to listen again. This way, streaming music indicates the passing of two ages: the digital download, but in addition, the notion that devotees might have itself to music.

No format lives eternally. Will this latest revision define a fresh relationship between cloud and devotees -bind digital files? The fact remains, each format bends to the utility they want, and conform to its specific characteristics. The question we’ll ask during the following week is this: How will it shift?