The spread of The Internet all over the world has changed many industries radically. The way they operate, approach business and interact with customers has changed forever. The music industry has not been spared either.
The very nature of the way music is purchased has changed. Up until a few years ago, getting music, legally of course, meant that a person had to go to a music store and buy a single or an album. If the song they wanted wasn’t released as a single, they had to buy the whole album. With travelling costs factored in, this amounted to a sizeable cost. Now, all you have to do is go to iTunes or any other such music retailing service and buy whichever tracks you want. Now there is choice.
The way artists can gain exposure has also changed. No longer are they at the mercy of record labels or radio stations. They can upload their videos or music to YouTube or MySpace and within a few days they can be a sensation (providing that the material is good). After that they no longer have to go searching for deals, but deals come searching for them.
Of course with every good thing there is always a bad. Music piracy has grown exponentially as well. With higher bandwidths and better file sharing systems in place, music piracy has soared. Even security measures such as DRM (Digital Rights Management) have not worked very well so far. However, the industry is constantly working towards finding ways to bring these wrongdoers to justice.