Media Review Ironically, \"After Years

Media Review

Ironically, "after years of futile efforts to stop digital pirates from copying its music, the music business has started to copy" the business model of the pirates it once attempted to sue (Pfanner 2009). For many years the music industry was criticized for taking a hostile attitude towards its customers, even taking them to court for participating in illegal downloading activities. However, according to Eric Pfanner's January 18, 2009 article in the New York Times entitled "Music industry imitates digital pirates to turn a profit," now "online and mobile services" are "offering listeners unlimited 'free' access to millions of songs" (Pfanner 2009). For their usual price of a phone or Internet service, consumers will gain unlimited access to a database of songs, and the music companies will be paid a small fee by the Internet or phone company for offering the service. In other words, from a customer's perspective the price of such access will be incorporated into the price of the phone or service. Songs will not be provided on a for-pay model, and the database access will be vast.

Critics of the music industry have long noted that its continued focus on selling albums and single songs is outmoded, and that the industry could better use free online musical access as a way to generate interest in the beleaguered recording industry, by stimulating curiosity about artists and generating excitement about upcoming concerts. Communications networks can be used as a source of profitability, but not according to the traditional model of selling songs, when they are so easy to copy.