As for file sharing in which consumers send music by the Internet to others at no charge, which violates copyrights are at the main focus. Many infringement lawsuits against many companies such as Napster have been filed due to file sharing. Norkus believes that file sharing shouldn't be a big issue for the music industry and firms. He stated that, "For planning purposes the industry can assume it will not be a big issue". He believes that either there is widespread piracy and consumers no longer pay for music, or piracy is contained through legal, contractual, or market solution. Many believe that file sharing has an upside, because it will increase consumer exposure to many new artists. By increasing consumer exposure to new artist, record sales should increase.
The major concern of the music industry is the technology of streaming audio. Streaming audio is predicted to be the biggest disruption to the music industry, to record labels as well as retail stores. It provides an opportunity for consumers to listen to music on demand. It's like listening to the radio over the Internet, where a copyrighted digital song file is played for a consumer, but the consumer is without constraints of physical ownership. An example of streaming audio is Real Player, which is the industry leader for streaming audio technology. If streaming audio is left like this, experts believe that it will have a positive impact on the music industry because it gives exposure, which increases sales.…
