The music industry is one of the top grossing organizations in the world. However it has been undergoing drastic changes due to the easy access of listening and downloading music for free or almost nothing. While free music is good for fans, these developments have had a devastating impact on the musicians themselves. Sales of recorded music have dropped off substantially due to the numerous applications and torrent programs that are easy to use and free to download. Consumers have gone from buying CDs to downloading applications that give them the same music at no cost. This essay will shed light on how file-sharing music started, how it is being done, and how it financially affects the music industry.
From the introduction of the floppy disk in 1971 to the MP3 file in 1991, there has been dramatic technological advancement in how we listen to and share music. In 1999, it became a lot easier when Napster was founded. As a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service that let users share audio files, Napster specialized in MP3-encoded files. After running into copyright infringement issues, Napster stopped operations and was eventually acquired by Roxio. Many companies, such as Gnutella and Madster, followed in Napster 's footsteps with P2P file sharing. These first generation P2P systems relied on central servers, which made them vulnerable to being shut down. However in March 2000, Gnutella became the first decentralized file sharing network with the release of a network
From the introduction of the floppy disk in 1971 to the MP3 file in 1991, there has been dramatic technological advancement in how we listen to and share music. In 1999, it became a lot easier when Napster was founded. As a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service that let users share audio files, Napster specialized in MP3-encoded files. After running into copyright infringement issues, Napster stopped operations and was eventually acquired by Roxio. Many companies, such as Gnutella and Madster, followed in Napster 's footsteps with P2P file sharing. These first generation P2P systems relied on central servers, which made them vulnerable to being shut down. However in March 2000, Gnutella became the first decentralized file sharing network with the release of a network