What are your views on the way convergence has affected the music industry?

With the technologic age fully in its stride there are many affordable products available for t he public that offer incorporated elements to make one product have many uses. Convergence is becoming prolific as now people can have a mobile phone with incorporated iPod, iTunes, apps such as spotify, YouTube, social networking sites etc… by having many different apps and products all in one it makes it portable, cost effective and modern. This has affected the music industry in a positive and negative way; the positive elements are convenience, speed, portability, fits a modern life style, size and price. This supports the music industry in a positive way as they can then create apps that then can be easily used such as spotify; this then gains popularity for artists and also people can listen to new music as it is made easy to find and download. The negative elements of convergence is that  music is being shared for free as people can then send music over their phones and this makes the revenue for record labels decrease. By making a product that can do so much and be so portable and easy the main negative effect of this is that people recognised that instead of buying music they can share it amongst friends. Peer to peer file sharing and downloading has now been made easy as online pirating has become fast and quick due to sites such as bit torrent and pirate bay.

This affects record labels such as domino and universal as if people are illegally downloading and then sharing the music though computers and phones it is hard to track and then they will loose money but also a positive effect of piracy is because its free many people buy and listen to the music and this increases popularity of the artist.

 Domino is an independent record label and they use their website to support convergence in a positive way by having  downloads available, domino cast, domino player, video and promotion; this shows convergence as they are using their websites in different ways. The negative effect of convergence is that the music industry are rapidly loosing money but their efforts to secure this are by making sites where people can listen to music without stealing it. For universal it has affected them as they can now use synergy within TV to gain popularity through different forms e.g glee uses music and then this gains popularity on the songs that they use as when they hear the song they think off glee and visa versa. In conclusion convergence has affected the music industry in positive and negative ways and for the public it has made it easy to access music on the go.

Elena Di Maria