How Do You Consume Music?

How do you like to listen to music? Do you download music to your phone? Do you stream it on music platforms with a subscription fee? Do you use an iPod and download music onto it? Do you buy physical CDs to put into a CD player? Do you buy vinyl records?

Whether you like it or not, we are entering the digital world where most things are becoming virtual rather than physical. Music consumption has changed drastically over the last two decades. How do you think the value of music has changed?

My classmates were giving a presentation last week about a case from 2000 titled, “Metallica, et al. v. Napster, Inc.”. This was a case that focused on copyright infringement and unlawful use of digital audio interface devices. But through our class discussion, from all the negativity that this gave to the public, there actually sparked some positivity. The ban and closure of Napster gave rise to Spotify and other music streaming platforms. Do you agree with this argument?

Here is a video that talks in detail about the case:

I have a very important question and that is, how do you feel the value of music has changed when compared from being physically obtainable to just virtual ownership? To simplify that, compare an album with buying the CD versus buying the digital album online or paying a monthly subscription to a platform to stream the music (i.e., Spotify). As a consumer, do you think that the value of the music has changed?

My thought process of this comes from textbooks at school. I would always go for the digital version, usually PDF format, rather than buy the actual hardcover textbook. There is a major price difference and as a student with student loan, it really does break the bank and I need to make smart choices for my education. The perspective here is that for digital copies, I have nothing physically to get, so it is worth less in monetary value. The PDF will always be cheaper than the paper copy of the textbook. In similarity, the digital version of an album from a band would be cheaper than buying the physical CD version of the album.

At the same time though, I have a counter argument. Digital copies are so much easier to transfer, and you can listen to music on the go, on your phone, computer, tablet, TV, etc. You can listen to the music even more frequent because it is digitalized. It is harder or almost impossible for those to carry around a CD player or a vinyl record player while they are on the SkyTrain to go to school or work.

Do you think this is a good thing or bad thing for artists?

Do you think it will affect them positively or negatively?

What are your thoughts about digitalizing everything?