Blondie's Debbie Harry has been quoted as saying ”The music industry is already ruined. Computers and the Internet and downloading songs completely ruined the music industry and everything artists used to work for.”
"I remember when vinyl was corrupted by cassettes and the whole industry went crazy thinking nobody would sell any records, so it's really been heading this way for quite some time”, she adds in an interview with Bang Showbiz.
The music industry is directly affected by the constant progress of technology and we still haven’t seen exactly where it will settle. Unfortunately if you do not jump aboard the technology train at this stage of the game you risk getting left behind. Plenty of artists, such as Radiohead and Trent Reznor, have decided to spread their work across social networks, and some bands have even given their music away for free... Where? The Internet. Second to the Internet, successful bands are still able to move several hundred thousand copies when albums are released in stores. For not so successful bands the Internet provides a wonderful DIY opportunity to get their music heard by the masses without much of an associated cost.
Illegal downloads cost the industry millions of dollars a year and as a result record companies and their artists lose out. Yet, amazingly the availability of all genres of music from all over the world has increased the choice of the consumer and the ability for all artists to be heard. As Pete Townshend has commented “A creative person would prefer their music to be stolen and enjoyed than ignored. This is the dilemma for every creative soul: he or she would prefer to starve and be heard than to eat well and be ignored.” And a dilemma it is. Not so much for signed artists, but for DIY passionite creatives who have never known fame or fortune or ever had an opportunity for their music to be heard by millions of potential fans until the Internet came along.
The Internet has given music fans and performers a somewhat level playing field, but a new game. Illegal downloading needs to be squashed and right now would be a great time for record companies and anyone with an interest in selling digital music to allocate a large budget in order to combat this problem. “Nobody wins unless everybody wins” – The Boss
