The music industry is changing. It will never be the same again and I think it's a good thing.
To me, being able to share music over the internet is just a more effecient form of the mix tape or cd. When P2P first started up years ago I used to use programs like Napster to find hard to find songs from my favorite artists, artist that I already owned cds from. That inevitebly led to downloading a few songs from artists I wasn't familiar with, which has sometimes led to me buying a cd or going to thier concert or whatever.
I never really took it any further than downloading a few songs over p2p networks until a couple years ago when I started getting into torrents. Torrents have made it easy for me to download entire albums of high quality sound files very quickly. Most of the time I'll use torrents to dowload an album from an artist that I'm interested in finding out more about. If I find I really love an album I've downloaded I'll want to go out and buy it. More often I end up liking an artist from a download and then in the future when they release something I'll buy the album instead of downloading it or go to their concert when they're touring. Lots of times I find I never listen to an album I've downloaded after a few listens and I just delete it. Lately I've downloaded some torrents that have leaked before the cd is released. I do this for bands that I can't wait to hear the new cd and pretty much always go out and get the cd the day it's released.
I don't know where I'm going with all of this really but I do think that we're on the cusp of a big change in the music industry. The current system is fattening the wallets of big corrporations that are jsut after the next big radio hit and it results in more radio drival being created because it sells to the masses while the real talented artists are left off to the side with little marketing help because they don't bring the big volume sales that the top 40 hit makers bring in. Just look at bands like Arcade Fire for an idea on what the internet can do for you. An unheard of indie band catches some popularity on some forums on the net and before you know it they're selling out concerts all over the world. Never would have happened via traditional radio routes.
Basically, because of the internet and sharing music easily over it I have expanded my musical horizons ten fold. I've discovered new bands that I now go out and see in concert whenever possible and I would say that my cd buying has gone up by a real lot. No longer am I at the mercy of the radio to discover new music. I can use sites like <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.last.fm">www.last.fm</a><!-- w -->
<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.allmusic.com">www.allmusic.com</a><!-- w -->
<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.pandora.com">www.pandora.com</a><!-- w -->
and any number of music forums like this to find stuff that I'm really interested in.
