Blogging Task: State of the music industry in 2012

The music industry has changed drastically in the last decade. Illegal downloading means now that record labels and artists now no longer make the money they used too off their music. Sites like the recently shutdown 'Piratebay' and 'Limewrie' is where a majority of the music is illegally downloaded from. This means that what used to be a fair exchange; an artist giving music in return for money, is now lop-sided, customers can obtain music without exchanging money which in reality is stealing.

Furthermore, the way music is produced has now changed, making it more difficult for record labels to make money. Artists now have recording equipment at home and editing software on their PC's. Making one wonder if record labels are needed that much anymore. Another major change to the record labels situation is the big 4 (EMI, Sony, Warner, Universal) record labels becoming the big 3. EMI records has been bought by Universal records.

Also promotion has changed greatly, artists can now use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to promote music as artists like 'Lethal B' have shown. Further asking the question as to whether record labels are actually needed anymore. Video streaming sites like Youtube are very powerful in promoting music, as its exposed to what could be millions of views in such a short period of time.
 So now in 2012, 'Rihana' an extremely popular artist is now the most illegally downloaded artist in the world. 'Rihana's' latest album named 'Talk Talk Talk' was downloaded illegally 1,228,313 times between January and July 2012, truly staggering figures.