Music: the future

The popularity MP3 is driving changes in the music industry that will bring a leveling of income to composers and performers, increase in their share of gross revenues, and drastically increase the number of composers and performers that are accessible to the music purchasing public.

After MP3 as finished remodeling the recording industry, the industry will consist of three players:

1. Remnants of the current/former recording industry.
2. Internet companies that sell CDs.
3. Internet companies that sell individual recordings.

The first area will contain the fewest artists and will operate much like today's recording industry operates. The major difference will be that the ease of creating and distributing unauthorized recordings will limit how successful any artist can be. The more successful the artist, the higher the percentage of unauthorized recordings being passed around. Efforts to create a copy-proof format will fail because at some point the audio has to be converted into an analog signal that can drive the speaker. This analog signal is in the computer in digital form before it is sent to the audio card and can easily be recaptured and converted into any format without loss of quality. And after the first digital copy is made then all subsequent copies will have the same quality as the first.

Next will be Internet companies that handle CDs recorded by full-time professionals. They will have downloadable (reduced audio quality) selections from the CD available at their sites. The consumer will listen to the download to determine if they want to order the high quality CD.

Finally will be Internet companies handling individual audio files from anybody who has a yearning to create music. These files will be of the highest quality that the individual artist can produce since the file is the product that is being sold as opposed to being a step on the way to selling a CD. These files will be distributed as shareware. Artist earnings will come from shareware payments and more importantly from having their music included in custom CDs where the consumer will pick which audio selections to put on the CD that they order. MP3Shareware.com is a new Internet company intent on capturing this market.

The bottom line is that the music industry is going to have to adapt to new technology. One way would be find another way to make money on recorded music than just selling CDs. For example, many online retailers are losing money on their merchandise in order to be competitive but are making up for this loss by selling ad space on their sites. Even if they can't stop people from sharing copyrighted music, people will still by CDs. After all, it's much easier to purchase a CD than find and download every song on that CD and put it on a recordable media.

The recording industry has to evolve and figure out how to use new technology to make money instead of clinging on to the past. If they don't figure out how to use digital media to their advantage, they will be left behind in the new millennium. It will soon be impossible to make a significant profit from the sales of recorded music.