Digital Media and Music Exploration :: 2
Introduction
Changes in culture are intricately connected to changes in technology (Carey
1988). Throughout history, new inventions in the way sounds, images and texts are
produced and captured have changed the way that artists and writers work, leading to
new styles (dime novels, Impressionism, Rock and Roll) and forms (photography,
synthesized music, digital art) of expression. But perhaps even more far reaching, new
technologies have dramatically changed the market for art and culture, typically leading
to expanded audiences having access to more diverse options. In short, technological
change has often accompanied both the expansion and diffusion of culture facilitating
more choices available to more people.
In recent years, thanks to the increasing spread of digital media, it is easier for
new creators to enter the marketplace with their creations, and consumers of cultural
products have access to a larger selection than ever before. Technology has shifted
inventories of music, books, and videos first from expensive physical shelf space in local
stores to cheap space in national warehouses, and then to virtual shelf space in the online
world. In the purely physical world, the average Walmart store offers around 4,000 CD
titles and the average music superstore offers 40,000 (Anderson 2004). Online retailers
such as Amazon, on the other hand, offer upwards of 150,000 unique CDs. Digital
storefronts like iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody and MusicMatch offer upwards of three
million tracks- the equivalent of about 300,000 CDs.
This paper considers the impact of new digital technology on music consumption,
a subject that has drawn considerable attention from pundits, scholars, legal experts, and
the music industry. The terrain is contested, messy and difficult to sort out. Traditional
social and economic arrangements surrounding intellectual property are breaking down.
Convention