It’s 1960, and the Beatles are recording their newest album, with no technology. Fast forward 50 years from now. Almost all of the new and existing musicians are involved with technology in their music, whether it be instrumental or vocal. Edgar Bronfman Jr, an American businessman, once said, “The history of the music industry is inevitably also the story of the development of technology. From the player piano to the vinyl disc, from reel-to-reel tape to the cassette, from the CD to the digital download, these formats and devices changed not only the way music was consumed, but the very way artists created it.” The music industry has been under destruction ever since technology has entered the equation. With new technology advancements such …show more content…
Legal documents state that artists have the right to protect their music from copyright infringement, the stealing, reproducing, and sharing of music that is secured by the copyright law. “For the musician, copyrights can protect both songs (which usually consists of a melody and includes lyrics if the song has words) and recordings (CDs, mp3s, LPs, cassettes, DAT, and any other recording)” (Legal Issues). Many online websites have been violating this law. Napster is one of these companies who violate copyright infringement by allowing users to download thousands of songs in the .mp3 format for free. “Unsurprisingly, major record companies took issue with large-scale distribution of their music for free, and sued Napster for direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement of copyright in order to protect their intellectual property” (Washington University School of Law). Despite the fact that people and companies are violating copyright infringement, many people think that copyright infringement isn’t such a bad thing. They feel copyright actually helps the artist’s exposure by giving people a convenient way to listen to their music. This interpretation is unreasonable. Artists should not be embezzled and filched of their musical products. Another company who violates copyright infringement, is …show more content…
Pro Tools is an example of the technology that is used to produce a ‘better’ song or album. Pro Tools, a musical program created by Avid, allows artists and record labels to copy and paste parts of a song together and enhance the artist’s singing (12 Ways Technology). Studies have proven that when technology is introduced to music, it creates this inelegant sound that is mostly found in modern music. “In Spain, researchers conducted a study comparing the lyrical and audio content of pop songs from 1955 to 2010. And they found that today's music lacks the intricate sounds and complex arrangements of yesterday's” (Daryl Nelson). On the other hand, some people may feel that the quality and sound of music sounds better. For example they may believe it sounds louder or simply helps the singer’s voice sound better. Although, this point of view is proven to be false. When music is often or over edited, the high quality sound in music is what suffers. According to Joseph Plambeck, when music is altered by technology, it sounds thinner and crackled. The sound is similar to listening to music on a record or an old CD (Jared Keller). Technology incorporated into music is completely needless. If an artist has musical talent, technology should not create a barrier of emotionless sound that hides
The RIAA believe that Napster has helped users infringe copyright. The threat of the lawsuit has been around since the conception of Napster and was actually filed four months after Napster went on line. The case is not as clear-cut as it first appears. RIAA argues that most of the MP3's on Napster's site are mainly pirated. Therefore, by Napster allowing and actually making it easier for users to download MP3's this means that they are assisting Copyright infringement.
Singers and songwriters need to make a living somehow. They know that downloading music is a way to get their voice heard, but they also know that it is significantly hurting the business. "When your product is being regularly stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action," said RIAA president Cary Sherman (RIAA 1). There are a lot of people involved in the music scheme when it comes to who needs to get paid by the revenue. From the sale of one CD, singers get one small fraction of the cost, another fraction goes to song writers, musicians also get some of the profit along with retailers, engineers, technicians, warehouse working, and ever...
Amidst the continually increasing levels of commercially distributed music, there is widespread concern that the sonic quality of today’s popular music is deteriorating. More than ever before, dynamic compression is utilized in mixing and mastering to make a song as loud as possible. The belief that “louder is better” has lead to these mixing and mastering practices that have since been coined as “The Loudness Wars”. The great irony in this matter is that in an age where technology thrives and our advancements in applied sciences have come so far, one should expect the quality of recorded music to be outstanding. However, as the trend of hyper-compression progresses, there is an undeniable regress in the sonic quality of commercial music. The motive behind all of this was simple: louder music, if perceived as better, will result in higher sales figures. However, there are many fatal flaws to this theory. This essay will examine the origins of the loudness wars, as well as short and long-term consequences that may arise as a result of hyper-compression and limiting.
The Use of Electronic Technology in 20th and 21st Century Music In this essay, I have examined the use of electronic technology within 20th and 21st Century music. This has involved analysis of the development and continuing refinement of the computer in today’s music industry, as well as the theory of the synthesiser and the various pioneers of electronic technology, including Dr. Robert Moog and Les Paul. Also within the essay, I have discussed the increasing use of computers in the recording studio. The computer has become an indispensable tool in ensuring that both recording and playback sound quality is kept at the maximum possible level. Many positive ideas have come from the continued onslaught of computerisation.
With each passing year, technology has become highly involved in our lives, and continues to at a rapidly increasing rate. Technology, in many ways, was designed to help people in various fields of work. However, it has also achieved the reciprocal. Where does music lie? Has technology hurt or helped the field of music, specifically hip-hop? What do these advancements mean for the genre?
Music and the relationships of music have changed drastically in our society. The course of studies and the evaluations of the applications of the technology of music, the making and the listening of music have changed in the way we listen to music, the styles of music in our society and in the media. The importance of the technology in music today, has, over the past century been charted through the study of musical examples and through viewing how human values are reflected in this century's timely music. There are very many different types of music that are listened to. There are readings, writings, lectures and discussions on all the different types of music.
According to the text A Gift of Fire, Napster “opened on the Web in 1999 as a service that allowed its users to copy songs in MP3 files from the hard disks of other users” (Baase, 2013, p. 192, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The Napster Case). Napster was, however, “copying and distributing most of the songs they traded without authorization” (A Gift of Fire, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The Napster Case). This unauthorized file sharing resulted in a lawsuit - “eighteen record companies sued for contributory infringement claiming that Napster users were blatantly infringing copyrights by digitally reproducing and distributing music without a license” (Communications Law: Liberties, Restraints and the Modern Media, 2011, p. 359).
Today, you will see countless of people going about their daily activities with a common accessory: earbuds. One person listening to their favorite Spotify playlist through their iPhone may be walking to their nearest Barnes and Noble to pick up Kendrick Lamar’s newest album on vinyl to enjoy through their vintage stereo system. Although, both of the audio formats of vinyl records and digital recordings and streaming have their advantages to every listener’s preference, digital recordings and streaming have an upper hand in the means of convenience, personal listening capabilities, and availability. Vinyl records dominated the sales of of various audio formats in the 20th century. Most would agree that after the surge of compact discs in the early 21st century, vinyl records have made a comeback, and are especially popular with millennials.
Music Copyright is a very important aspect of the music industry. The Copyright law was established to preserve the creativity and rights of authors, composers, performers of expression. Copyright is the law that protects the property rights of the creator of an original work in a fixed tangible medium. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/copyright) A fixed tangible medium is something substantial like copying lyrics on paper or putting a song on tape or CD. Copyright can be seen every where in the music industry. Many music artist of our culture today have been involved in copyright issues. Recently, on MTV news it was stated that, "As the music industry becomes increasingly concerned about protecting the integrity of artists copyrights in the age of MP3. Prince has now filed a motion in New York federal court aimed at shutting down several websites offering free downloads of the Artist's songs." (http://www.mtv.com…19990304/prince.jhtml) In addition, in recent music news, "Nine Inch Nails lead man Trent Reznor copyright infringement suit was dismissed. Another artist claimed that the Reznor had stolen material for his last album." (http://www.mtv.com…19991202/nine_inch_nails.jhtml) The copyright law has become an important legal aspect to know our music generation.
Development in computer technology has also made a big impression on music. Many things within these fields have enabled artists to connect with their fans in ways they couldn’t before, and on a lower budget. In this paper, the discussion will be about all of these topics, and about the factors that help transform the music industry into something altogether easier for new people to contribute to. History: Back in the early 1980’s, record labels controlled what people could hear through airplay, record distribution and manufacturing, and selective promotion of music based on their judgement of their audience.
The music industry impacts the lives of people from around the world. With the implementation of technology, the influence of the music industry has spread to affect anyone with access to technology. Streaming services have contributed to the increased popularity of music. While there are positive effects to being able to stream music and have multiple ways of listening to it, the music industry suffers from the lack of revenue and illegal activity associated with technology. Technology has had both positive and negative effects on the music industry by affecting how people access music and how music is produced
Modern computers lead to music production going from analog, which is the use of tapes and records, to digital, which is the use of CDs and MP3s. Digital production allows for even more advanced and precise control on just about every factor of music production. This also allows for more detailed and clear audio through more evolved microphones than in the past. Another way that digital technology has helped modern music is through the availability and affordability of production. In the past, if somebody wanted to express a musical idea, they had very few options.
To produce music has become easier than in the ealier years when it used to cost a lot of money to have a session in the recording studio to record music. Because of progression in computer technology many people are now able to produce music using software known as virtual instrument VST plug-in. Many musicians and singers used to record live in the studio many people used to listen to vinyl records in their radios then came cassettes then compact disk (CD's), since the introduction of virtual Instrument (VST)softwares many people no longer need a band for live recordings and also producing ,reproducing and distributing music is becoming cheaper, making it possible for small and independent record companies to enter the market while most of the young people are longer having interested in joining record labels. Music is now downloaded online for less, sometimes for free especially in YouTube media of which is more preferred by most of the people than buying CD's through music shops and retailers. Piracy and illegal downloading has hit the music industry very hard and the distribution is no longer controlled which is also something which makes the music shops and record shops to go out of business for instance many music retailers like have closed down due to
...en the biggest hurdles the music industry has overcome. Thanks to iTunes and Google Music record labels and artist can reach almost anyone in the world with their music and know that their work won’t be infringed upon. In the next five years copyrights will still have the respect it has today. As technology moves along copyrights will be right behind it revising the rules and regulations to make sure that an artist intellectual property is safe and that the artist or label can receive compensatory damages for copyright infringement.
In today’s world technology has evolved and is still evolving to better for everyone in the world. Most importantly from what I saw music technology to what artists use have done a phenomenal out take on the way it brought out music production. Within this music programing on computers plays a big role.