This paper will attempt to define the forms taken and technology used by music industries on the Internet, which allows them to be represented in this still-growing medium. The content of the paper is subject to change, depending upon the availability of resources.
I intend to focus on the Internet as a commercial ground which allows companies to achieve various parts of their business activities, from the marketing and promotion of bands and products (in the form of both software and hardware) to trading and selling those products on the Internet, to a worldwide customer base.
I will attempt to identify and discuss the technologies involved in transferring audio and music over the Internet - a field which is still under rapid development, with new technologies developed and updated on almost a weekly basis. Because of this, the information which will be provided by this paper will be of short-lived accuracy and will become dated very quickly. It is for this reason that the paper is intended to be a snapshot of the structure of the music industry and its music technologies on the Internet at this given moment in time.
The paper will take three main critical outlooks on the subject -
- Historical - to provide background information and to summarise how we have arrived at this stage in music technology. I will therefore discuss the history of the Internet and its associated technologies and the history of the commercial music industry and how it has been changed by new technology throughout history. The main body of the paper will be concerned with the meeting of these two media, and how one has influenced the structure and nature of the other.
- Technical - detailed discussion of the technologies involved in storing and transferring music and audio on the Internet, including compression software, storage mediums, sampling, Internet Protocol and the Mbone (Multimedia Bone). I will also discuss the basics of digital audio which are relevant to the subject, ie audio file formats, digital storage, sound processing etc
- Commercial - ie the kind of companies involved in developing and providing music software for the Internet, the way in which they differ, and their effectiveness compared to others. The paper will also detail the various kinds of music industries which are found on the Internet, how they differ from the traditional music industries, and what technologies they utilise to stay ahead of the competition in a market that is set to boom in the next five years.