Some experts believe that music industry should build rapport with the Internet to allow its business to flourish especiallys during these trying times.
Fortunately, music executives have already learned to accept that Internet has changed the way people access and distribute files and contents, especially with the advent of BitTorrent protocol which is program that speeds up file distribution between computer networks.
During the annual gathering of music executives recently held in France, the industry has made partnership deal with two popular online sites including MySpace and Amazon and electronic giant Nokia.
Just recently, the music industry has withdrawn its lawsuit against more than 35,000 people accused of illegally downloading and distributing music files. As this legal move seemed to be protracted and unfruitful, executives resorted to other ways such as making partnership deals with various online retailers.
One primary reason why the industry is forging partnership deals with online music distributor is this: to increase its sales.
As music executives have realized that CDs were continuously experiencing slumping sales for previous years, they have seen the Internet as a way to address this problem. And ironic as it may seem, this electronic medium was first seen by the music industry as a big threat for their business.
According to a survey conducted in 2008, around 95 percent of music files have been downloaded through the Internet. With this finding, experts believe that more than 40 billion contents have been illegally downloaded.
MP3Tunes founder Michael Robertson, who is charged by the industry with copyright infringement case, said that record labels should experiment other outlets to disseminate its music.
Meanwhile, critics warn that legal online distributor should offer better deal to people if they want consumers to stop downloading music from illegal sites.