Post 5: Music

Assignment: Some people say we are living in fortunate times cause of ways in which new media makes music accessible (downloading it). Other people lament the demise of music industry and say people suffer from current practices. What are your thoughts on this? What are some of the positive and negative repercussions of being in the information age when it comes to culture/music? How would you describe the relationship between music and culture in this era to someone in a different era? Who ‘owns’ culture, who as the power to change it, right now? How might this change in the future?

Today, music is more accessible than ever before. In the past, music was more of a social event. A person could not separate music from the social context because that was the only place it was heard. People didn’t own music in the way we do today. It was not a commodity. Technology changed this in the 20^th century. With the internet it becomes a product; constantly traded, reproduced and frequently played. It is still meaningful, as the value exceeds the fact that it is a commodity by people continually going to concerts.

Positive repercussions of being in the information age include the easy access we have to so many different files. This is especially important for schools, as I have noticed it has been easier if I don’t know something to just “Google” it and can easily find an answer in a matter of seconds. Negative repercussions include piracy and copyright infringement. In the past few months, piracy has become more of an issue and the government has stepped in with the SOPA and PIPA laws to try and stop it. Illegal downloading websites like “Megavideo” and “Limewire” were shut down to because of this. People have responded by creating websites to replace the ones that were shut down.

Music production companies are the ones who ‘own’ culture. They have the power to change it and manage the way its distributed. This is most noted in the rules regarding how music it shared. Although it is ultimately the consumers who buy the products, the music production companies decide what is popular and what to sell.