13. downloading music

Music downloadsgave become increasingly popular, downloads have become a large part of music that they are included in the music charts when deciding the positioning of songs.

why they are becoming increasingly popular

• Audiences can get the music easily from the internet for free e.g. Limewire or at a cheap cost e.g. iTunes, the music transfers directly to your PC and can be played immediately and transferred onto your mp3.


• You can download the music in the comfort of your home instead of going out to buy it or buying the CD on the internet and waiting for it to arrive. This therefore makes it convenient and flexible to audiences.


• downloading a song can take as little time as a few seconds, going out to buy a cd can literally end up taking a whole day.

audience

Downloading has become most popular with the young- teenagers and young adults as they have less money to spend on music and know how to actually download music.

institutions

positives

‘There are currently 300 legal digital music websites, three times as many as existed a year ago. Digital music services have registered 2.2m subscribers around the world, which is up from 1.5m in January. The two most popular are iTunes, offering 1.5m tracks and Napster, which offers 1.2m.’ Jul 25, 2005 PASSAGE FROM BBC NEWS ARTICLE

Negatives

Big record labels have seen their sales slide precipitously in the past several years, and have blamed the falling revenue in large part on rampant free music downloads online. Others have pointed to additional factors, such as lower household spending during the recession, and increased competition from other entertainment forms such as DVDs and video games, each of which have grown over the same time period.

Theory. Convenience, cheapness, quick.