English Class Essay 2

This is the second essay for my English class. I recieved an "A+" for this one.

Explanatory Synthesis
By Zen Cruiser
English 101C, sect. 5B
March 21, 2006
Dr. M. L.

Pay Per Download Sites are Storming the Industry, No Rain in the Forecast

The file-sharing phenomenon has cost the recording industry billions of dollars in lost sales and reached new heights of copyright infringement. A small program called Napster has allowed computer users to download music from other computer users via the internet for free (Edwards 160). This new technology was the start of a revolution over the internet. Music industry corporations and artists claimed copyright infringements and the legal battle began. Napster lost its legal battle and was bought out and turned into a fee-based system (Edwards 161). Since the wide spread epidemic of file sharing exploded over the internet, the entertainment industry has been scrambling to provide fee based alternatives to file sharing that will attract users away from the free, but illegal, peer-to-peer systems.

In hopes of pulling people away from illegal file sharing, the recording industry has responded to the demands for selection and flexibility in music downloading with label backed services, but can’t seem to decide on the best method of providing the music people want (Jones and Benzuly 167). It seems that people really liked the idea that they could download songs on an individual basis. Record labels are built around the idea of the album, and some feel that selling music at the song level could lead to the end of the album concept. (Bockhorn 163). Selection was also an issue. Huge selections of music from all types of genre were available through the peer-to-peer networks used for illegal downloading. Price and delivery method were also issues. Some executive felt that online sales would hurt CD sales and made a decision to sell at or close to the price of a CD (Green 166). The fear of piracy has pushed some sites to monthly subscriptions with unlimited streaming, a method of viewing on demand but not actually downloading. The selection is, however, limited by the company that each site keeps. If your favorite artist isn’t on one of the labels that a site features, you won’t be able to buy their songs from that site. With all these problems, this new market has its work cut out if it intends to win the public away form peer-to-peer networking.

Several fee-based web sites are now offering many new features and payment plans to entice music lovers to pay for their music instead of downloading it illegally. Many new payment and downloading options are being offered to attract a broad base of new customers away from peer-to-peer file sharing. Sites now boast over 250,000 songs from the five largest record labels and many of the independent labels (Jones and Benzuly 169). With guaranteed quality and user-friendly interfaces to find the music you want, these sites are becoming much easier to use then file-sharing systems. Partnerships are being formed between companies that supply the music and companies like Real Networks who supply player technology to make listening even easier.

Pay sites still haven’t gotten it completely right. Several issues still make these sites difficult and limited. The music still costs money. In some cases you can pay as much for the music you download as you would for a CD from the store even though the cost of overhead for online music is almost zero (Green 166). Although many sites boast large collections of music, not all music is available at every site. You may need to have more then one membership to get all your favorite artists. Also, the peer-to-peer networks have a lot of music that the pay sites don’t have, such as alternative music and older and more obscure tracks. You may need to research several sites to make sure you can get the music in the format you want it in. Some sites offer downloadable MP3 formats that can be played on devices other then your computer while other sites offer unlimited streaming of songs to your computer only. You have to decide how you want to listen to your music and pick the site that is best for you.

With the introduction of Apple Computer’s iTunes and the iPod, a new player has jumped onto the scene and is taking a strong hold of the market. Apple secured the backing of the largest labels with the concept of a non-interoperable player and format. The iPod is Apple’s tool for listening to your music. It can be compared to the Walkman except that you can’t take the cassette out and stick it into another player. The iPod is the only player that will play music downloaded from iTunes. Despite the cost of the iPod device, iTunes and the iPod are selling fast. Apple is, however, beginning to run into some obstacles in Europe. A French law is in the process of being passed that would force Apple to share information about the file formats that keep iTunes from being copied. Apple has stated that if the law is passed it would result in "state-sponsored piracy". In a response issued after the law was initially approved, Apple said: "If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers" (BBC.com)

The future of this broad market is still uncertain, but it is clear that a lot of work needs to be done to provide everyone the music they love in a simple inexpensive package. The market is still young and the direction it will ultimately take is uncertain. For now it seems that the marketing plans are beginning to work, to get people to make a mental shift into the pay per download idea and to pay for their music in general. The legal campaigns may never completely stop peer-to-peer file sharing, but the industry is attacking the problem from both angles and I’m sure they will put a severe dent in the issue. For now, though, we must muddle through as the industry continues to take shape and grow.

Works Cited

Bockhorn, Lee. “MP3 and Me: How I stopped Worrying and Learned to

Love Online Music File-Sharing (sort of)” He Weekly Standard.

October 16, 2002.

BBC.com. “Apple attacks plan to open iTunes” BBC News Online.

March 22, 2006.

< http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4833010.stm>.

Edwards, Catherine. “The Napster Challenge” Insight on the News.

January 2001.

Green, Heather. “Digital Media: Don’t Clamp Down Too Hard”

Business Week. October 14, 2002.

Jones, Sarah, and Sarah Benzuly. “Paying to Play” Mix. May 1, 2003.

English Class Essay

The following article was writen for my English class. I recieved an "A" on this paper.

Critique of Brent Staples’ Essay
By Zen Cruiser
English 101C, sect. 5B
February 18, 2006
Dr. M. L.

Crying the Blues for Pop Music

Brent Staples is an editorial writer for the New York Times and holds a PhD in psychology from The University of Chicago. He was also the winner of Anisfield Wolff Book Award in 1995. In his editorial “Driving Down the Highway, Mourning the Death of American Radio” published in the New York Times June 8, 2003, he attempts to persuade the readers of the New York Times that American radio is too commercialized to be worth listening to for any length of time. He goes so far as to insinuate that commercial radio restricts our freedom of speech and is, in general, a detriment to our culture.

In his essay, Staples states that despite the crime rate in his neighborhood he sees the purchase of a CD player as a symbol of “despair that commercial radio . . . has become so bad as to be unlistenable” (85). Radio stations have become a big money business. Once congress increased the number of stations a single company could own, the value of stations increased dramatically. Now only a few companies own almost half the airways in the country. The large corporate owners have large corporate debt and place their focus more on making money then on quality programming. They are cutting corners by cutting staff and increasing advertising to as much as thirty minutes per hour. The shortcomings of corporate ownership are apparent in the lack of attention to local news and issues. Concentrated ownership’s ability for wholesale censorship across large audiences is an even more important issue. This type of ownership, he feels, is killing “the heart of popular culture itself” (86). Independent radio of the past was important to the local community as well as the country by allowing new musicians to showcase a variety of musical styles, which brought about the popularity of many famous musicians. Staples concludes that record companies are trying to duplicate the popular music that currently gets airplay and, in doing so, are creating an unimaginative music scene.

Brent Staples’ essay starts off in a very odd manner with references to crime in Brooklyn. A subject that seems very far from the topic of his essay and yet he uses it much like the “hook” in a song to grab your attention and lead you toward the bold statement that radio has become “unlistenable” (85). His references to the cost of a radio station are vague at best, and he makes no reference to specific sales data. He claims that radio stations 25 years ago were “as important . . . as city hall” (86). He also claims that DJ’s were let go in an almost wholesale fashion and the ones that remain do not define their area as DJ’s in the past did. In my local area Jeff Walker, Rocky and Sue, Chris Michaels, Bear Man and Keith, and Ken Mathews are just a few of the DJ’s that have been on the air for many years and help to define the stations for whom they work. Many of his references to factual data are just as vague and difficult to confirm or deny. Because of this, it is difficult to say if Staples used his information fairly. Since none of his information was contrary to the point of the essay, it seems that Staples has been biased in his selection of information. Although some issues may actually lie somewhere under the references to his childhood and lament for radio of old, he never really addresses any of them beyond grand accusations.

The essay is filled with emotionally loaded wording and unsupported facts. Why would Staples feel that today’s radio is unlistenable? At first it seems that he is just not happy with today’s music. “Spin it yourself,” he says of pop, rock and country’s “mind-numbing list of songs” (86). Also, he argues that commercial stations are bland and repetitive because they are so expensive. I don’t see the connection between expensive and bland. It would seem to me that the larger the expense of a station, the more important it would be to have exciting programming to attract listeners. Stations of old may have kept advertising down to 8 to 12 minutes in an hour and now you might hear up to 30 minutes of commercials at peek times, but it would seem that radio is just keeping up with TV and newspapers that see similar amounts of advertising if not more. Squeezing “every cent out of every link in the chain” (86) is a corporate fact of our economy. If today’s companies don’t make money, they get bought out or go under. Congress may have risen the cap on how many stations could be owned by one company, but that is doubtful that was the sole cause of today’s radio formats that Staples seems to detest so much. Censorship issues are the only plausible argument against corporatized radio that Staples makes, but he over emotionalizes the argument by saying that the issues go beyond censorship “to the heart of popular culture itself” (86) making it seem as though corporatized radio is killing our very way of life. Elvis and R.E.M. may have become popular by barnstorming the country, but the radio I here today is filled with new artists. I hear as many “one-hit-wonders” now as I did in the past. If Brent Staples feels that pop music is flat and unimaginative, might I suggest to him an oldies station?

While I agree that having “one voice” across the nation in radio would be a bad situation, I don’t believe that we are near that point, as Staples would have us believe. The format of radio has undoubtedly changed over the years, as has the music itself. Radio stations have picked a theme and that is what they play. Chris Michaels, a DJ at WSBG in Stroudsburg, told me a 500-song play list is the industry standard and DJ’s today don’t pick the music for their show. Program directors are the ones who decide what gets played when. It would seem that Staples wants the old free radio style he grew up with rather then categorized radio where each station plays it’s own genre. Undoubtedly, corporatized radio has issues that need to be discussed and addressed, but I think Brent Staples spent more time crying the blues over the loss of his old music than addressing the issues of today’s corporate radio.