The history of the Internet can be traced back to 1957, when the USSR launched Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite (Anderberg, 2007). In response, the US Department of Defense created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to increase science and technology research as related to military advancement (Kristula, 1997). In 1962, Paul Baran of RAND proposed a decentralized packet switched network that could survive a nuclear strike and maintain military control over nuclear arms. This packet switched network began in 1969 when four universities were linked together with 50 Kbps circuits (Anderberg, 2007). For the next twenty years, Internet technologies would be vastly improved. By 1991, the network was composed entirely of T3 lines, which were nearly one thousand times as fast as the previous circuits used twenty years earlier. The previous year, Tim Berners-Lee had written the first web client and server, and CERN subsequently released the World Wide Web to the public in 1992. The World Wide Web was developed as “an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing” (Lee, 2010). Berners-Lee is also the head of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which was developed in 1994 as the main standards organization for the Web. In this same year, the Web grew at an amazing “341,634% annual growth” (Anderberg, 2007, Section 1994). In the context of this research, it is extremely important to understand that “the Internet is a copy machine” (Kelly, 2008, Para. 1). As bits of data are sent around the network, they are copied many times over and over again. “Every bit of data ever produced on any computer is copied somewhere. The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free” (Kelly, 2008, Para. 1). This is why the Internet as a primary distribution channel for music is in direct conflict with music copyright laws. The Internet “super-distribution system has become the foundation of our economy and wealth” (Kelly, 2008, Para. 3), thus to restrict copying and sharing goes against the very nature of the system that new models of music distribution and consumption are built upon. By the end of the 20th century, the Internet had seen large growth since the emergence of the Web. By 1999, five million domain names were registered, and there were over 300 million people with Internet access (Anderberg, 2007).

Internet users are now connected on a global scale, opening up unlimited possibilities for cross-cultural communication, production, and distribution. This new culture of connected users and media creators has sparked an online movement of collaboration, interactivity, and sharing. This is in stark contrast to traditional media business models of one-way communication where passive consumers are force-fed content through a radio, television, music store, and/or movie screen. We can now see a culture of media users and creators existing on the Web that have taken the production, distribution, and consumption of content into their own hands. In what Tapscott and Williams (2006) describe as “the age of participation,” they claim that these “new collaborative infrastructures…allow thousands upon thousands of individuals and small producers to co-create products, access markets, and delight customers in ways that only large corporations could manage in the past” (p. 11). This is a critical point, as individuals and users (remember the public good?) are the ones that will truly benefit from a shared content culture. Tapscott and Williams (2006) go on to say that “these changes, among others, are ushering us toward a world where knowledge, power, and productive capability will be more dispersed than at any time in our history” (p. 12). This presents a positive outlook on shared culture, insisting that there is indeed a shift of power taking place, with value being created by the sharing and reuse of content. At the same time, this future world that the authors mention is exactly what the corporate conglomerates are determined to prevent from becoming a reality. With the introduction of new digital music formats and the means to easily share those music files globally, the recorded music industry is nearing a paradigm shift at the turn of the 21st century.

The MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, or mp3, is a digital music format that was developed by the Motion Picture Experts Group and officially released in 1994. The mp3 format allowed music files to be compressed into much smaller capacities, allowing for much faster transfers over Internet connections. The mp3 format began to gain popularity with the release of the Winamp player in 1997, as well as the introduction of mp3.com in the same year. Also in 1997, Microsoft added mp3 support to the Windows Media Player, and shortly after the first portable mp3 players began appearing in 1998 (Ewing, 2007).

Once the mp3 format became widely adopted on the Internet in the late 1990′s, there became a need for an efficient method of transferring those mp3 files from computer to computer. Peer-to-peer networking was the answer to that need, and Napster was the first major player on the scene. While different kinds of file sharing networks like USENET and IRC had already existed for some time, Napster was the first to specialize in the p2p model of trading and sharing of mp3 music files. Developed by college student Shawn Fanning in June of 1999, Napster was a music sharing service that allowed users to share mp3 files with one another through a p2p network. Napster used centralized servers for indexing files and users, and while the actual file transactions were made strictly between users’ computers, this centralized model left Napster open to liability infringement charges. The RIAA immediately filed a suit against Napster in late 1999 claiming copyright infringement. However, it could be argued that this lawsuit actually drastically increased the amount of copyrighted materials being shared on the Web, due to the fact that the case becoming public drew many curious people to the service. When the RIAA’s lawsuit against Napster was filed in early December 1999, there were approximately 50,000 users of the Napster service. By the end of that same month the number of users had tripled to 150,000, most likely due to media press (Knopper, 2009). The lawsuit between the RIAA and Napster would go on for a year and a half, and by the beginning of February 2001, there were over 25 million registered users of Napster globally, with over 10 million of the users residing in the United States (Knopper, 2009).

The music industry attempted to use moral grounds to prevent users from sharing music. On the RIAA’s website, Lars Ulrich of Metallica stated that those illegally downloading Metallica’s music through p2p file sharing had the “moral fiber of common looters” and that this was an issue between right and wrong. The RIAA president at the time was Hilary Rosen, who stated that a “business model built on infringement is morally and legally wrong,” while others in the industry “likened file swapping to Satan and Stalin” (Marshall, 2005, p. 85). Moral arguments like this were essential to the major labels strategy of curbing file sharing on the Internet. Without the moral argument, there is no justification left for criminalizing file sharing. As Marshall (2005) explains, “this approach by record companies – persuading the public that piracy is wrong because it infringes artist integrity – has a much greater chance of success than economic arguments against piracy: because they care little for the profits of large companies, individuals will only stop downloading mp3s, copying friends’ CDs, or trading tapes if they think it is wrong” (p. 85). Napster was eventually completely shut down in July 2001, and went bankrupt and sold off its assets in 2002. However, consumer preferences had already shifted towards digital music, especially for younger music users, and the the framework for music sharing on the Web had already been established.

With Napster shut down, many more file sharing services stood in to take its place. This new breed of p2p uses decentralized servers, making copyright infringement much more difficult to prove in court. Sites and services like Kazaa, Soulseek, Limewire, and BitTorrent enabled file sharing to continue despite continued litigation attempts by the RIAA. It became clear that lawsuits and threats on moral grounds were not convincing users to stop file sharing. Telephone interviews were conducted in 2006 by the Canadian Record Industry Association (CRIA), finding that 66 percent of 13 to 24 year olds have downloaded music files to their computer from the Internet. Among that group, an average of 38% of the music files on their computer were obtained through illegal peer-to-peer music sharing services (CRIA, 2006). Based on the average amount of digital music files that these participants had on their computers, the data “suggests that the average peer-to-peer downloader in the study had roughly 210 songs obtained from these unauthorized channels” (Fisher, 2008, p. 4). The difficulty in prosecuting these decentralized unauthorized sharing channels lead the RIAA to a new strategy, suing individual Internet users. I will discuss this bold strategy further in the next section.

At the same time, some established artists are embracing file sharing and p2p and using this phenomenon as a way to grow their fan bases and further their careers. One of these artists is the renowned recording engineer, owner of Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago, and lead singer for the band Shellac, Steve Albini. At a Fair Use panel discussion at Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2009, Albini expressed his views on file sharing and p2p, seeing them as new ways for users to access content. He claimed that this is a “normal” thing for people to do. He states that “we should treat normal life normally instead of formalizing it in any way” (Panel discussion). Albini also mentioned a specific situation where illegal file-sharing of his band’s album actually helped them monetarily. Shellac’s CD was not readily available in many parts of Eastern Europe, so people there would have to illegally download the music on the Internet if they wanted to hear it. Albini estimates that the band sold approximately one thousand CDs in the region. However, when Shellac went on tour in Eastern Europe, they sold over thirty thousand concert tickets. This was related directly to the fact that their music was available for free to users online through p2p networks, who in turn became fans and purchased tickets for their shows. Albini (2009) concludes, “unauthorized dissemination does not always hurt the artist, many times it is a reward” (Panel discussion). This example shows the Internet as a global promotional tool for music, without any effort put forth by the actual band or artist other than actually making and releasing the music. The users and fans spread word-of-mouth and music files at the same time, acting as the most powerful promotional tool for artists and musicians ever.

Another important technological development is the introduction of affordable home recording and music creation software. Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) got their start in the late 1970′s and early 1980′s as expensive, computer based, tape-less digital audio sampling devices. Flash forward approximately twenty years, and the current reality is that any Internet user can easily secure a free copy of audio production software that will allow anyone with a little bit of creativity to make songs. Or that user can choose to legally buy a software package like Pro Tools, Logic, Acid Pro, or Nuendo for an average price of a few hundred dollars, still just a small fraction of what it cost for similar but much more limited functions twenty years earlier. The introduction of the software Acid Pro specifically points to a shift in access to the means of music production. Launched just a year before Napster, Acid Pro came out in 1998 as the first ever audio production software that could automatically adjust the tempo of sound sources to a predetermined beats per minute. This allowed for easy looping and remix capabilities, leading to a boom in amateur music production in the US. Popular software today like Ableton Live takes those looping and mash-up possibilities to another level, integrating many unique instruments, processors, and live performance manipulation tools. Extremely affordable hardware controllers are also available, allowing for musicians and artists to easily manipulate sounds and effects with keys, knobs, and sliders. As these tools became available to anyone and everyone with a home computer, suddenly the professional recording studio was not a necessity for recording and mixing an album, as a simple home or “project” studio is now capable of producing “professional” sounding musical recordings.

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By Adam Porter, 2010.