MP3 :: essays research papers fc

Executive summaryIts only been about three years since a little known extension of an audiocompression technique-MPEG-2 Audio Layer-3 or MP3-opened the door to beingable to send large volumes of CD-quality music over the Internet by pack theequivalent of several commercial stuff disks onto the equivalent of one CDplatter (Lange 01). It also initiated the veritable infrastructure of piratingactivity by an underground community students and hackers. Hundreds of MP3Internet sites sprung up overnight. At these sites, everything in music fromMozart to Marilyn Manson is being reproduced (Lange 01). Of course, itsillegal, but its free, which has a huge appeal. two men summarize the battle that is still raging over this spic-and-span technology.On one side theres Val Azzoli, co-CEO of the Atlantic Group, which hasnumerous popular artists subscribe to their label and on the other is the CEOof the website MP3.com, which gives away digitized songs by forward-looking artists thatno one ha s heard of yet (Mardesich 96). sequence this may non sound like muchof a threat, what lies at the heart of this encounter is the concern ofrecording industry that this new technology may chance the balance of powerand if allows the shipment of music at a time to the consumer (Mardesich 96).The five elephantine corporations that contr ol 80% of the global musicindustry-worth roughly $60 billion a year-have taken notice (Wood Darcy42). The following discussion will explore much fully why the recordcompanies, despite their obvious power, ar scared.Pros and ConsIt is the mind-boggling 121 compression ratio of the MP3 that has made it sopopular. While 60 or so Mbytes are needed to store a typical song, once itis converted to MP3 format it becomes a single 5 Mbyte file (Lange 01). "Theadvantages are obvious," commented one executive, "CD-quality sound in a shrimpy package" (Lange 01).The drawbacks are all felt by the record companies. Artists are likely tobenefit, eventually, if they take advantage of the new technology anddeliver their songs to their fans directly via the Internet (Mardesich 96).Theyl l no longer have record companies reservation money off from their workand by eliminating this "middle man" could conceivably earn a great dealmore then they do now. However, for the large record labels, this newtechnology could mean real solicitude in the future.Right now, the loss are negligible. For example, the Statesns spent almost nil on downloaded music in 1998, but they spent nearly $14 billion onmusic from stores (Mardesich 96). Nevertheless, the Recording IndustryAssociation of America (RIAA) said that MP3 piracy may have contributed to a