Is There a Future For The Music Industry?

Can you imagine a world without music? No? Then perhaps you can imagine a world where there are no music stores. No longer can you buy CD's in store. No longer can you hold the CD cover in your bare hands and marvel at the cover art of your new favourite band. Open the CD booklet and find the lyrics printed on the inside.

The idea seems a little strange right now to some. But in the future? Maybe not. Maybe this is the sad future for the music industry. All music will be either sold or pirated online for cheap. Ready for download straight to your pc, and in turn to mp3 players. Tours will still exist, t-shirts will be sold. Things which the record company don't even get money off. But there will no longer be CD's.For me the idea sounds horrible. But what on earth would bring such a revolution? What would cause the extinction of CD sales and in turn bands and music industries.

I have but one simple answer for you:

The internet. With the revolution of downloading CDs, sales have plummeted. Although it has been a gradual process if they continue to plummet there will be no CD's to sell. But how does this all work?

First I need to explain Peer-to-Peer downloading. Which is an illegal system which allows you to download music for free. Basically a person uploads an album to their computer, the files are saved. Then using a program they upload these files to the internet. Other people can go to these websites and using a program can download these files. Hence the name peer-to-peer sharing.This is one of the music industries major problems, people illegally sharing music. Resulting in less people buying records. Even though it is illegal. It still happens more than it should.

In fact, it's becoming popular. There are probably even people in this room that have done some form of peer-to-peer sharing. Programs like Limewire and BitTorrent are major programs.There has however been action taken against sites like these. Record companies have been suing these sites and winning. But at what cost? Some of the record industries are being sent broke and even when the site is shut down there are still others that come up. This won't end.

If it continues there won't be any major record labels left. So many bands will be lost. Luckily there are solutions to these problems. Though they won't wipe out peer-to-peers they will help reduce them. Such as the Itunes music store, it had a large catalogue of music and sells songs for a reasonable price. Others programs like this one are also becoming more popular. But this still isn't going to stop the demise of CD's.

Will the CD just become what record players and tape players have? Basically extinct? This would be bad news not only for record companies but for artists. People who design cover art for bands. What will they do when there are no CD covers to design? Sure there will be posters and t-shirts but will it be enough? Or will the revolution of downloading kill all that?

However negative that all sounds the internet isn't all bad for music. With use of the internet it is now easier than ever to find a band you like. And it's more easy for bands to be discovered.

With the use of the intent people are listening to far more music than ever. Which is something positive.But still the threat that faces the music industry is evident. If it continues to decline without anything to save it, then it will no longer even exist. Although this is improbable it isn't an impossible. If CD sales continue to decline there will be no CD's to buy. A sad fate but a probable one.