ed with continuing declines in music shipments and lost profits, the record companies launched an all-out attack aimed at getting consumers to stop downloading music files for free. According to Brian Garrity of Billboard, in 2003 record companies engaged in combat against music consumers to stave off declining sales, “In the past 12 months, record companies went to war with their consumers, gave in to pressure on CD pricing, turned to DVD and videogame features to sell albums, laid off thousands of employees, proposed mergers, sold manufacturing divisions and other assets and watched thousands more music retailers close their doors,” (1). These efforts included lawsuits against music consumers guilty of downloading large numbers of music files online without payment. This analysis will discuss how the music industry continues to combat the impact of technology on the way consumers consume music.
The combined advent of the Internet and digital technology has had the greatest impact on how music consumers consume music. During the period from 1999-2004, sales of compact discs (CDs) in the United States have declined by more than 26 percent (Music 1). The biggest reason for this decline stems from the use of online downloading of music files for free by American consumers of music. Sites like Napster and its companion site Kazaa enable millions of music consumers to download music files for free through technology known as Peer-to-peer (P2P) swapping. By merely registering at such sites, music consumers were able to download music and movie files for free from other users who make them available on their computer hard drives. Companies like Napster argued they were doing nothing illegal because they were not profiting from sales of music files. Instead, consumers merely chose to swap music files already in their possession. Digital technology enables users to download the files, save them on their computers for replay and...