Digital audio has permanently changed how people find, buy and listen to music. In the US, digital downloads have brought $4.8 billion in revenue. This is not the end of the music industry, it has created a transformation for the recording industry, and it makes music more accessible to consumers but has piracy. File sharing for example is extremely controversial and has led to organizations such as Napster, which made it possible for high quality audio compression, but was shut down for copyright infringement, it was eventually relaunched.
Although, the evolution of digital audio has affected certain parts of the music industry such as record stores, as it is cheaper and easier for people to download music from the Internet.
The music industry has now switched to DRM-free MP3’s for music downloads, creating a new consumer friendly music environment. Apple for example has applied this to itunes. This is not the end of the music industry.
This post has some good observations but also a number of factual inaccuracies. Napster had nothing to do with the development of compression technologies and while it is true to say there has been a general move away from DRM in recent times it is not true to say that "The music industry has now switched to DRM-free MP3’s for music downloads".
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