Many people believe that Apple dominate the paid music
market by way of the enormously popular iTunes brand. The general consensus has
been that the public haven’t changed their behaviour towards music; people are
willing to purchase their favourite songs in order to be able to play these
songs as and when they choose to.
The concept of music subscription services or “streaming” music
services is a relatively new process, however it is changing the manner in
which the public are willing to pay for and listen to their favourite songs.
Recent data has revealed that about 20 million people
worldwide pay a monthly fee to listen to music on the Internet. Sweden , South
Korea and France
lead the way in this cultural change, with music subscription services
outweighing paid download services three-fold. Interestingly, the largest music
markets [USA , UK , Germany
and Japan ]
still favour the paid download service.
QUESTION: Why is this happening?
ANSWER: Smart-phones.
Music lovers appear to be happy to pay about USD$10.00 per
month in order to hear their favourite tunes via their smart-phones 24/7. This
change in mindset has forced Apple to strategise a music streaming service, in
order to stay competitive with the likes of Spotify and Google.
But what about the recently revamped MySpace music streaming
service? The public can join MySpace for free, and choose from an impressive
catalogue of songs for free.
Music copyright owners probably aren’t making as much money
today compared to previous generations, however the general public have never
had a better opportunity to listen to music for next to nothing [or nothing at
all!!].
