Digital music: one year look back!

Digital music can also be considered a product of information technology (IT). So in the past year the industry has many changes in all aspects - the most prominent is still a legal issue - similar to what happened to the IT world.

There may be many of us who receive gifts as a digital music player for Christmas this year - one of the 'trendy' products that should be available at the moment. But surely, few of us know that those products are just the beginning of a story .

The battle of all kinds of digital music formats along with illegal music downloads is still the biggest problem in the past year, although the music industry has actually taken some strong actions to stop block out. The result is probably still a matter of much debate.

For the recording industry, the struggle to persuade users to pay to own digital music on their device can be said to have not achieved any significant results. The struggle continues .

For users and people who criticize the way the music industry uses to turn to digital music, the battle to convince them is a problem, not just from 'roots'. .

Control problem

2005 was really a chaotic year for the music industry. However, in some ways there are still victories worth paying attention to in the field of copyrighted music business through file-sharing networks.

But the record industry suffered a major failure in dealing with copyright violations. This problem is even more powerful when Sony BMG's XCP anti-piracy application on some CDs is discovered using technology techniques commonly used in viruses and worms. , trojans . to hide themselves undetected on PCs.

Wayne Rosso, director of music services at Mashboxx, is also the former director of Grokster file sharing service system, believing that the 'bad' pressures along with the forced 'withdrawals' XCP technology from Sony BMG may be the death knell for DRM (Digital Rights Management).

DRM is defined as any mechanism used on CDs or audio files to control the use of multi-media files of users. DRM has many different forms and can limit the number of times songs can be added to playlists, how many CDs can be recorded or what kind of songs those songs can be replay…

Rosso believes that 2006 will be a year when the recording industry will convince digital music users to use MP3 format.

Stealing network systems

Wayne Rosso thinks that we not only have to call in general but also think about the root of the problem.

Mark Mulligan - music analyst of research firm Jupiter, agrees with the notion that the music industry should think about the idea of ​​living with music for free if the industry wants to capture one. the number of next generation music lovers before they switch to using file sharing systems.

" Grokster may be taking the last step on its path, but the demand for online tint-sharing networks is still very large. This need cannot be lost overnight ."

According to Mr Mulligan, 2006 will see a growth in stolen network systems that function similarly to peer-to-peer file-sharing systems. However, the possibility of being tracked is much more difficult.

2005 also witnessed some legal victories of the music industry for file sharing systems. The most notable victory is the decision of the US Supreme Court to impose legal penalties on file-sharing networks. It was this verdict that led Grokster to close.

However, the US Supreme Court ruling did not mention illegal music downloads.

Mulligan believes that the music industry should somehow understand the file-sharing systems, build free services . maybe by reducing the quality of music files, for example.

Loose relations

There is an obvious fact that while the number of digital music listeners and growing devices is growing rapidly, digital music has yet to catch up.

According to a recent survey by Napster, music lovers are struggling to 'fill' their digital music devices when these devices often only use up to 50% of their storage. Stored from CDs.

" The retailer predicts that 2005 will be a good year for the MP3 format digital music business but our figures show that it is the exact opposite , 'Leanne Sharman , Napster's general manager, said.

The problem is that taking music from CDs takes too much time. Napster is always interested in encouraging users to use the subscription service for a fee - the service is not limited to downloading music but only pays a fixed monthly fee.

Mulligan predicts that in the coming years, fee-based music services will flourish. MP3 will still be the main format used to manage music collections.

" Digital music still has a loose relationship with digital music devices. It seems that this is still considered a supplement ."