Internet's influence on Music

 I am sure we all remember at some point downloading a song from the internet and putting on our either computer or iPod or some other device to listen to it later. This was completely illegal if anybody didn’t know that yet. This form of piracy hurt the music industry because it allowed listeners to download copyrighted music to listen to it whenever they wanted for free. Artists who make the music were also not getting a proper count of people who have listened or bought their music. 

Before the illegal mp3 downloads from internet artists were able to count their sales strictly from physical album sales. When the illegal downloads came into play the music industry had to figure something out quick they were essentially losing the music industry to the internet. The big music labels attempted to create approved music downloading sites that would allow a certain number of downloads at a fee. These sites were very unsuccessful and led to even more illegal file sharing. This was up until 2003 when Apple produced the iTunes Music Store which helped to slow the file sharing by allowing listeners to buy individual songs for just 99 cents. Eventually after the music labels seen the success of the iTunes Store they began to allow for music downloads without copy protection. 

This catapulted to eventually having tons of LEGAL sites from which music can be downloaded from. It only took until 2011 for digital sales to exceed physical sales. Now because of the online sales of albums and songs the count for music sales have also changed. An album going platinum used to be just having 1 million physical album sales. Nowadays according to digitnalmusicnews.com a song can go platinum from getting 1.5 billion streams from all streaming services combined. The major music streaming services have completely taken over with Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal. 

1. Spotify- According to statista.com in 2020 Spotify had 144 million premium subscribers. Spotify has over 50 million songs with about 40,000 being added daily. Spotify also offers around 700,000 podcasts. Spotify is also known for its abundance in playlists that can be recommended and shared to you by other users.
   
   
2. Apple Music- statista.com reported that Apple Music had 72 million subscribers in 2020. With a large selection of over 50 million songs. Apple Music offers a convenient compatibility to all Apple products that allows for a shared connection of music over connected apple devices.
   
   
3. Tidal- As of 2016 Tidal reported they had 3 million subscribers. According to forbes.com Tidal has about 56 million songs in its catalog. Tidal not only offers music but live streams and Tidal exclusive content meanwhile all of this backed by Jay-Z which attracts more listeners.

The introduction of the internet has came from illegal file sharing and piracy to being the primary sale and distribution of music throughout the music industry.