The Death of Limewire and The Rebirth of The Music Industry
After a decade of supporting multimedia file sharing, Limewire is under federal investigation, marking the end of its run. With the decline in revenue from recorded music, the industry is shifting focus to live performances, where artists and companies like Ticketmaster and Live Nation are capitalizing on concerts and festivals to generate income. While the music industry isn’t dead, it’s evolving, and those interested in it must adapt to its changing landscape.
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It has been a good run, but after ten years of successfully supporting small time music and video pirates, the P2P multimedia file sharing company Limewire, is finally under federal investigation. Unlike the demise of its predecessor Napster, the federal government itself is taking down Limewire, rather than the music industry. The investigation began when sensitive documents pertaining to President Obama’s private helicopter were found bouncing around Limewire’s file sharing networks.
It is no secret that the sharing of copyrighted and sensitive documents will never cease, but I am surprised at the general sense of apathy the music industry has developed over the course of the last few years. Investigations into online music theft are no longer considered valuable endeavors and record producers are surrendering to technology. To make matters worse, iTunes, who holds the current monopoly over record sales, is gouging both the artist and the label with a minimum cut of 44 cents per song.
With no future in recorded music, major labels seem to have given up, leaving veritable ghost towns where media giants once bred superstars. In fact the EMI music group is suffering from enough loss that they were forced to sell their famed Capitol Records building. The company still operates there, but they are now paying rent.
Yet music will forever remain an essential commodity for the human spirit and there must be a market for it. Since records have lost their ability to generate capital, the focus of the music industry is now shifting towards live performance. Independent artists now look to gain credibility on a local scale before joining national acts. Meanwhile, mainstream artists look forward to a busy schedule of tours and summer festivals that provide an annual salary.
The companies that are making a killing off this shift in distribution Ticketmaster, Live Nation, and House of Blues who have all recently merged, setting a precedent the future of big business in the music industry. We can look forward to our concerts becoming hotspots for advertising, as new ways of generating profits from live shows are constantly invented.
For those considering prospects in the exciting field of recorded music, you might want to think again. Some people like to think that the music industry is dead, but this is not the case either, what is going on is merely a shift in sales that has been painful for producers and enlightening for consumers. There is still much money to be made on the faces and songs that make the Bilboard Top 40, but the game is significantly different now. It is up to the current generation of media moguls to figure out how the industry will operate. The music industry will never lose its ability to generate a massive amount of profit, the question you must ask yourself now is: where do I fit in?