Herman+A+Blog+Post+Analysis

Herman A

TO: Proximity music team FROM: Andrea Herman SUBJECT: Illegal Digital Downloading DATE: Feb 1, 2009

In order to help prepare for Proximity's spring survey, I have analyzed a //Huffington Post// article about the fall of album sales and how illegal digital downloading is impacting music. Below is a summary of the article as well as a few questions I suggest we ask TU students to see where they stand on this issue.


 * The Illegal Downloading Epidemic**

Album sales decreased thirty-five percent in only the past four years, and while the amount of digital downloads have risen because of the iPod, they don’t come anywhere close to making up for the lost CD sales. Nathan Harden states, " Even after digital downloads are accounted for, total music sales declined more than twenty percent in the U.S. over the last four years. “ This is because "The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry claims that forty billion songs were downloaded illegally in 2008, and that ninety-five percent of all downloads were procured illegally, resulting in billions of loses.” But this is not just affecting record companies budgets, it goes beyond that. Harden points how this is affecting music diversity. In the past, record labels have spent a lot of money on developing each artist. Now on the other hand, if an artist’s first album is not a hit, they will get dropped from the label. This is disappointing because lots of great bands in the past such as Bruce Springsteen or the Doors that didn’t have a hit album at first. Also, another way record labels are cutting back on costs is signing fewer artists. Are we missing out on a lot of great music all stemming from illegal downloading?


 * Importance of “The Generation that Killed Rock ‘n Roll”**

Many people are familiar with the music industries financial problems but don’t know exactly who and what it is affe cting. The record companies and artists are still going to make money, they are just going to cut back on what they deem unnecessary. Therefore, music consumers and people who are downloading illegally are argumentively going to be affected the most because there is going to be less diverse music due to record companies' smaller budgets.

-Do you prefer buying CDs, or digitally downloading songs? -Do you pay for your digitally downloaded songs? -Do you care enough about the potential decrease in music diversity enough so purchase CDs or pay when you download digitally?
 * Questions to ask music consumers**

__Reference__ Harden, Nathan. (2010, February 1) The Generation that killed Rock ‘n Roll. //The Huffington Post//, Retrieved Feb. 1, 2010, from []