Digital generation playing a broken record

For a digital generation, we sure face degradation, writes Jason Hodge of Logan Park High School.

Degradation of music, literature and privacy, all three affect everyone in society, and all three have become more compromised in the digital generation, through digital music downloads, eBooks and eReaders, and web 2.0 elements.

So how much do music lovers hunger for vinyl releases in the age of CDs' downfall and the problematic digital revolution?CD sales have been declining for the past eight years according to the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and in 2009 CD sales dropped a further 7%.

The facts have been there for a long time now, the ‘internet' has ‘ruined' the music business, and the fears have spread to the publishing industry over eBooks, as those without international copyright any more are free online.

Artists now make more money from concerts than from album sales, and with Thom York's recent comment on the music industry collapsing in months or in just a couple of years, it is high time for artists to tap into new markets.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is now reporting that music piracy is now costing 71,060 US jobs and USD$2.7 billion (NZD$3.8 billion) earnings every year.

York's suggestion was for new young artists to self release their own music.

This of course is how many are getting noticed from websites such as MySpace, although some through their immense success on YouTube are then poached by large record companies.

New Zealand has led the way in cracking down on music and film piracy, even cases of Kiwi authors having their work uploaded by Google because it is not copyrighted in America, has been in the news in the past.

The proposed three strikes (no, not the one for prison sentences) and the other new changes to the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill have not come in to official legislation yet, but seeing the current overseas progress, Kiwi pirates, be warned.

LimeWire was slammed with a heavy lawsuit that had been building up for some time.

U.S.District Judge Kimba M. Wood filed in the favour of RIAA, who were seeking around 150,000 US dollars per copyright infringement.

This was a major breakthrough for record companies to make the crackdown on unlicensed P2P sharing services.

Many others have applied for licences and Lime Group did not.

The final reparation has not been decided, but it will be historic.

This does not stamp out the popular CD ripping of CDs that the current ‘holder' does not own.

It is only legal to rip CDs into music software such as iTunes if the ‘holder' owns the CD, or someone in their household does.

Record Store Day (RSD) was founded in 2007 and since it went global, it is celebrated every third Saturday of April.

It is a day during which independently owned record stores around the world celebrate music as the art form it is (music used to mean something). "I think digital distribution over the internet has greatly altered how artists present their music and in that sense it has diminished the art form.

It's too easy just to download a digital file and move on with your day, which doesn't really allow a fan to experience much of what artists do with album artwork to help create the mood and overall experience.

Plus, with the exception of some high-end CD players, most digitally distributed music is experienced by a typical iPod, or mp3, player.

With these devices the sound is not only a facsimile of the real thing but is compressed, giving it an overall thin sound," says Michael Kurtz, co-founder of Record Store Day.