The Rise of E-Business in the Music Industry (I like this topic Term Paper

The Rise of E-Business in the Music Industry (I like this topic because Im a Musician) - Term Paper Example Management information systems store and organize data such that useful analysis can be done on it for the betterment of the respective e-business company. 1. Introduction The advent of computers has caused an effect on almost every walk of life. The technological advancement has created many opportunities in numerous fields, ranging from medicine to education, travel to business. The field of business has seen revolutionary changes that have made it more structured and accessible. The invention of e-commerce or e-business has given the organizations an excellent opportunity to access millions of consumers on the web. SearchCIO.com, (2010) explained that e-business can be defined as the conduct of business by means of the incorporation of technology; it also refers to the buying or selling of products and services on the internet. E-business has made its place in a diverse range of areas for example, book stores, hotel booking, airline tickets, movies and music etc. E-business has no t only provided convenience to the consumer but it has also generated new avenues for the organizations to earn profits since it tends to reach a greater market segment than the conventional mode of business. 2. Overview The 20th century witnessed the evolution of different types of formats of music. The long playing (LP) record albums were famous and adapted by people for many years. A gramophone was needed to play the records. Then, the music lovers saw the advent of cassettes that could be played in comparatively smaller players. The size of the cassettes was smaller than the records therefore it was considered to be more manageable by the people. Cassettes became the main source of revenue for the music companies between the 1970s and 1990s. Later in 1990s, the invention of compact discs (CDs) improved the quality of music and became a new source of income for the music companies. The quality of sound improved with the invention of the CD therefore that technology started gainin g more fame than cassettes. The advent of the 21st century brought an unexpected change for the music business. It was a new music format that did not depend on any physical device like a cassette or CD- MP3. MP3 format could be saved in any computing device thereby changing conventional form of music to digital music. 3. Negative side of Digital Music The concept of digital music took a negative turn in 1999 when a young man named Shawn Fanning created the platform of ‘Napster’. According to Greenfeld, Taylor and Thigpen (2000); Napster was a file sharing platform that allowed the users to share files amongst each other on the internet. Instant messaging and search options were some of the features that allowed the users to find their desired music on the web. This platform gave the users an opportunity to listen to music without any expense. It is due to this reason that Napster became very famous and starting harming the music companies to a great extent. It was a ce ntralized platform which became the reason for its downfall. Olsen (2003) provided the information that Universal Music Group and EMI filed a suit against Napster for the illegal downloads that were allowed under the respective technology. The website was shutdown in the early years of the 21st century and stopped piracy of digital music. This was a big step for the music label companies as they were able to put a stop to a huge