Digital Distribution, such as Social networking sites, youtube etc. have greatly affected the marketing and consumption of media products, for the better, as they have allowed newer, smaller labels to come in and start to dominate the music industry.
It could be argued that digital distribution has negatively affected the marketing and consumption of media or music products in a major record label, as since technology and social networking sites continue to grow, so does piracy, this is mainly happening in major record labels such as Sony, as they do not create such a close, face to face relationship with their audience, meaning that people find it easier and less wrong to steal music from them.
However in Indie labels, this has not had a negative effect, because Indie labels are small, they build a better, more face to face relationship with their audience, this makes it harder for audience's to steal from them, as they can see the effect that piracy would have on that company. An example of a Indie label is Rough trade, this is a small shop that sells music from up coming artists, that would not have been found or promoted by major labels, the growth of technology and digital distribution has helped them with marketing, as it has allowed them to promote their shop on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter etc. which have a wide, global audience. It has also helped them with Marketing and Consumption, as it has allowed them to make a website, which they can sell their music over and also post music videos on, this helps them to make money through visualisation, they can also easily put adverts on their website, making a small amount of money that way, in order to invest in new artists.
Major labels, such as Sony have had to evolve with the technology and find new ways to Market and Distribute their music, in order to make money and not lose money or go completely bankrupt through piracy. An example of how they have evolved in Xfactor, this is a TV show that shows new, unknown artists as they develop and become a famous musician, this has helped keep the audience interested through the use of visualisation, meaning that they show the journey of how the artist develops, they also allow the audience to vote on their favourite artist to keep them in the competition, this helps to create more of a relationship with the audience, as it helps to make them feel as if they have some sort of control, over which artist is going to become big and get signed. It also costs money to vote, so this is another way in which the label makes money from their audience, to make up for money lost due to piracy.
Xfactor and Sony also make money by recycling old songs, as it has a huge back catalogue of songs, these are the songs that Sony own the right to, to recycle these songs they have a new artist such as One Direction, sing an old song, but with a new up-beat, modern tempo, this allows the label to make money off of an old song, through a new artist, this is called music soundscaping.
With the growth of technology and digital distribution continuing to happen, the audience has also had to develop, they have developed from either a producer or a consumer, into a prosumer, this means that they take songs that are already released and cut them up and make a new track out of them, through the use of new technology, such as Garageband and Logic Pro, they can then promote, or market their music for sale, through social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, and other sites such as iTunes and Spotify, this allows normal people, or audiences to produce, market, distribute and exchange their own, new music.
Many major labels have had to allow these new prosumers to do this, as they can make money off of the new songs being created, as they own the rights to the songs used, they can take the new mashups and make a profit on any sales of the new songs. EMI is an example of a company that did not allow prosumers to make new mashups from their songs and as a result of this they then went bankrupt. This shows that prosumers are now a major part of the music industry, and a key way that major labels have to make money, to make up for the money lost due to piracy. These new mashups can also help to advertise old songs, that are used i these new tracks, meaning that the major label is getting advertising for old songs for free, meaning that there will be more sales of old songs, making them more money.
Overall, the growth of new technology and Digital Distribution has affected the marketing and consumption of new music, in good and bad ways, it has allowed more piracy to happen to major labels, meaning they have to evolve with the times and find new ways to make money, such as prosumers, but because of this it has allowed smaller labels, such as Indie labels to make money and get their music out there, allowing them to start to dominate the music industry and become more noticed and well known.
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