2. ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS – HOW IT IS THREATENING THE FUTURE
OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
File sharing has become easier and extremely common over recent
years, websites such as ‘pirate bay’ and ‘limewire’ are allowing this to
happen and illegal downloading to occur. For the artists and record
labels this means large amounts of money is lost, if a record label has
no money it cannot sign bands/artists; therefore the potential career for
future artists is threatened.
This has lead to the recent introduction of the ‘Digital economy act’, which
has been introduced to prevent illegal downloads and file sharing. This
means that consumers who download music illegally can be caught and
prosecuted.
However some argue that illegal downloading may pose advantages, some
artists believe that illegal downloading gives them promotion;
audiences can explore an artists music before buying, therefore
drawing a wide audience. Also it can persuade audiences to spend
more on live gigs.

3. ‘Last.fm’ and ‘itunes genius’ recommends new music for you, so you don’t
have to; based on the genre and artists you listen to. This therefore has
become one of the top ways of discovering new music. The introduction
of Twitter and blogging websites have also allowed the discovery of
new music to become easier.
This has only developed in the last 20 years, this type of music sharing and
music discovery did not exist in the 70’s and 80’s; new music was often
played on radio stations. Although this is still popular today It is not
often used compared to use of the internet.