Whitepaper Proposal: by Sasha Wright, Umut Gozen, and Nick Caruso

The Rise of iTunes: When music downloading and cell phones collide

A majority of today’s music marketplace rests on the sales of digital music via the Internet. Even more recent, these music sales are being transferred onto mobile media directly, such as the iPhone and other new technologies in the cell phone industry. Even the computer industry has seen an increase in the sales of laptops, rather than desktops, due to peoples’ preferences for mobile technology. Dating back to Napster in 1999, digital music has changed the industry, decreased CD sales, and led the consumer astray from the traditional method of in-store purchasing. These increases in technology have affected the music industry, as a majority of consumers rely primarily on music downloading, legal or illegal. Mobile phones are now in use for downloading music content, and in the future, will eventually replace the mp3 player, including Apple’s own iPod. We project that due to the limiting factors of iTunes and the inability to transfer files as you wish, the Industry needs to find methods to improve its service and coordinate its services with converging technologies i.e., cell phones.

Our sources included a mix of academic journals, newspaper sites, blog entries, and articles from educational books. To start, Dave Kusek is quite the expert in the field. His book “The Future of Music” was published and excerpts of it are posted on his website at www.futureofmusicbook.com. His extensive research covers all areas of the industry including music formats, publishing, file sharing, P2P, and marketing. Through his book and website, we will be filling in what we don’t know with his overview on how the industry is run and his details of the marketplace.

Another source we found from the journal “Advertising Age” is called “Rights protection may restrict digital music, but don’t blame Apple”. This source, by Abbey Klaassen, covers a topic we are still researching: digital music rights. Obviously, this source puts the fault on anybody and everybody that is not Apple, but we do know that DRMs remain a major problem in the realm of music downloading. We will use her work as a stepping stone to dive further into this sector.

Another book we found is called “The Future of the Music Business: How to Succeed with the New Digital Technologies” by Steve Gordon. Gordon’s work is similar to Kusek’s, though focuses mostly on the digital world. Kusek’s book will probably be a lead into Gordon’s, and though we’re still reading this material, Gordon is definitely another expert in the field. (Needless to say, we are going to research more works by these same authors as well).

An article we found pertaining to our topic, called “What’s the Download? Music Survival Guide” written by the WTD Interactive Advisory Board. This article was found online, and consists of strategies for music downloading for consumers regarding how to stay out of trouble. This article also discusses the decline in music sales, illegal file sharing (including court cases), the future of music, cell phones and music, and the rise of legal downloading. We see this as being one of the most important findings so far in our research, and will be reviewing the material extensively.

The PEW Internet Project and Comscore Media Metrix also published an article called “The impact of recording industry suits against music file swappers”. This work contains lots of useful information regarding stats, numbers, and charts along with their findings in the field of music swapping. It also discusses music demographics, which are also an important aspect of our topic. We will most likely use their information and compare it with other sources to ensure solid numbers, (though, this source is highly reputable).

In tackling the topic of the Future of Music Downloading, we are aiming to draw interest in digital music consumers who own cell phones. This includes technology prone people who have significant interest in the music business as a whole. We will also provide perspectives for those with concerns and issues with the current model, and who are anticipating changes in the marketplace.

To research this fully, we have split the topic into three parts: Nick will be covering the introduction and overview of the industry. This includes when downloading started and why, what the problems were then and how downloading has remained in our current trends of music consumption. Sasha will be looking into the problems of online music downloading, by specifically looking into details of iTunes, Zune, and other popular marketplaces for music. She will present our problems statements, which will lead Umut into the final area of research: what is going to happen in the future. He will discuss the eventual elimination of iPods, Zunes, and other mp3 players, and propose the answers to our questions.