Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Physics Napster and the music industry Napster and the music industry We have all watched over the last year and a half as the controversy over the digital music provider Napster has clogged our television screens and lined our floors in the forms of newspaper articles. We are also well aware of the implications and revenue losses that the service either directly or indirectly causes. What I am going to investigate more in-depth in this article is, more specifically, the effect that Napster has on the operations of record stores worldwide. I am going to try to describe the most profound effects that Napster has on this industry. First, I would like to touch on the aspects of Napster that has aided the record sales industry. Take these facts into consideration when contemplating my argument. The highest selling group album sale was the new N’Sync CD, selling over 1.4 million in its first week of sales. Add this to the highest debuting solo artists; Brittney Spears and Eminem, each selling over 1 million in their first week on the shelves. All of these examples were available on Napster at the same time they were made available in stores. Most people, like I originally thought, would tend to believe that Napster would reduce record sales. However, as evidenced in my statistics earlier, record sales have been booming since Napster has become available to the public. But what is the reasoning behind this phenomenon? The digital music provider acts almost as a free advertising site for all musical talents, popular or otherwise. Bands can put their music out into the World Wide Web for all people to enjoy. This free music allows people to test out music and see what they like. Many people, if they enjoy something they hear, will venture out to the record store and buy a copy of the group’s album. The final aspect that I will endorse Napster on is that it sponsors tours and features different bands on its website. This is a final form of marketing that helps get groups known in the general public and help to boost record sales. So why are people like Metallica and Dr. Dre so angry with Napster? One reason, unrelated to record sales, is that Napster offers unperfected versions of unreleased songs that these artists do not want released until they are completed. But since I am focusing on record stores and record sales, I will look at the tradeoff between free advertising and decline in sales. While people can get samples to entice them to buy, they can also get whole songs to allow them to save money form buying the album. The first and more obvious area where Napster affects record stores in a negative way is that it can reduce sales. Anyone familiar with Napster knows that a fast enough Internet connection can allow you to get songs off of the service in under a minute. These downloaded songs are free, and for those who do not want to be inconvenienced with being restricted to listening to music only on their computers, about $200 can get you a rewriteable CD-ROM drive that allows you to burn songs from the hard drive of your computer right on to compact discs. These blank compact discs cost roughly $1 each. The fast Internet connection that I mentioned could be obtained for as little as $20 per month, where most record stores charge almost $15 per CD. The next aspect where Napster and other digital music providers hurt record stores is in the recent onset of the MP3 portable recorder and player. This very small device allows someone to take music directly off of the computer and carry it with them, taking up little space while listening to your favorite tunes with ease. These are the main affects that Napster has had on the record sales industry. While some may argue, with the statistics to back it up, that Napster has helped boost record sales; the popular consensus is that Napster hurts record sales and that it is the economy that has boosted record sales in the last few years. It’s a dispute that will carry on for quite some time. Bibliography: Word Count: 696
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