The music industry is one that has changed drastically over the last several decades. Where the radio and record stores once held dominion over how people accessed their music, websites and resources like iTunes, Pandora, and Spotify have taken over the field. Consumers can now listen to their own personal playlists without having to pay for the songs and YouTube provides easy, free access to things like music videos and private artists that are looking to make a name for themselves. Brick and mortar record/music stores are losing their grip on the industry when purchasing digital copies of songs is both cheaper and more convenient than getting in the car and driving to the closest store to get your hands on a hard copy of your favorite album.
These changes are indicative of the increasing reliance on digital media that we seem to be leaning towards. While there will always be people interested in hard copies of CD’s (as well as the resurgence of full-blown records over the last few years), the digital world continues to dominate the way we consume media, especially music. But the interesting thing is that, while physical copies of CD’s have been declining since 2001, over the last few years digital sales from resources likes iTunes have been dropping as well. This past year, the well-known musician Taylor Swift was the only person whose album went platinum—meaning that it sold one million copies—out of the thousands that were released. In 2013, the only other album to make it to that many copies was the Frozen soundtrack. Both of these instances were anomalies in the current state of the music industry. Swift had to promote her album like crazy, appearing on talk shows and working day and night to sell herself as an artist, and Frozen’s success as Disney’s first huge blockbuster in years undoubtedly helped to boost sales of the soundtrack.
But the question is, if music is such much more readily available, why is it becoming harder for artists to make money off of their work? One of the answers is that websites like Spotify and Pandora decrease incentive for people to buy albums. After all, when you can listen to music for free through a legal streaming source, why pay money for the songs? Hard copy sales are an even harder thing to push, especially when the in-store price tag is often several dollars more than what you pay for a digital copy. But another factor that may play into the decrease in overall sales is something that’s become more and more of an issue with the growing power of the Internet: piracy.
“Back in the day,” when music was primarily available for purchase at actual stores, the only way to gain access to a free CD would be to know someone who had bought the album and would be willing to rip a copy of the disc for you. Now, all it takes is some savvy search-engine work and you can find entire artist repertoires for nothing. The anonymity of the Internet allows people to get away with pirating music without much effort. The sheer volumes of people doing it make it hard to penalize on an individual level. Most of the time, the best that can be done is to shut down a website that offers free downloads of material. Most musicians have accepted the reality that piracy is going to happen regardless of what the law says or can do to protect their creations. As a result, artists have an extra level of work involved in advertising their product: convincing you that you should even bothering paying for it in the first place.
As college students, it’s easy to be sucked into the allure of free stuff. We already lack in the finance department, and paying for something that isn’t a necessity can be a tough thing to convince us to take part in. The common attitude is that we’re just one person, and the artist isn’t losing much with one illegal download. But the problem is it isn’t a single person; lots of people have the same thought, and that adds up. One person can actually be several thousand, and that’s enough to cause a significant gap in a musician’s income. The bottom line is that, for most of these artists their music is their livelihood. It’s how they provide for themselves or their families, and downloading music illegally takes that ability away from them.
There are benefits to purchasing music, though. The first and most obvious is that it’s the legal thing to do. Pirating music—whether punishable or not—is still illegal no matter what way you choose to go about it, and not getting arrested for something is always a nice route to take. But aside from that, the important thing to remember is that purchasing music allows the artist to make money and therefore continue to produce music. If you buy songs or albums from your favorite artist, that $0.99 or $9.99 goes towards their ability to make more of the thing you love. Without that revenue, it’s harder for artists to get their work out and that means less of it for you to enjoy.
As the new year starts to get into full swing, I’d encourage people to pay for their music, whether it’s a song or an entire album. You’ll be better off for it, and so will the music industry.