DISTRIBUTION OF MUSIC

iTunes is the main music distributor for those who own iPhones, iPods, iPads and Macs. It is the main feature for music that allows you to download music and albums straight onto your Apple devise that gives you easy access to music that you want. It also allows you to buy and download music videos that you can have and watch on your phone for extra money.

Google Play/music and Amazon are for those who own Android phones and wish to download music, this can be accessed on any computer or laptop such as Apple. This allows people who aren’t into Apple products and iTunes to download music without having to be on the iPhone wave.

Spotify is another music distributor, it allows you to play any song, anytime and you can listen to music when you are offl ine and has no restrictions for the price of £9.99 a month, with a free month before you start.

THE MAIN MUSIC DISTRIBUTORS

eMusic is a slightly less known distributor of music online, you have to pay to sign up with 7 days of free music although after that you still have to continue to pay for music as well if exceed the amount of downloads you are allowed in that month as your monthly subscription.

Napster is another website that is seen less compared to the main distributors. It allows you to play millions of songs on your computer, mobile or home audio system. Gives you a free month trial and after that is it only £10 a month and gives you the opportunity to cancel anytime.

Rhapsody is on computer, Apple products, android and tablet devises, combined with diff erent apps and MP3 players. It gives you a two week trial and then £9.99 a month to listen to any music tracks and albums that you wish to.

OTHER UNKNOWN MUSIC DISTRIBUTORS

Napster was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer fi le sharing internet service that emphasized sharing audio fi les, typically music and encoded in MP3 format. It started in 1999 and was developed by John Fanning, Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker. It’s technology allowed people to easily share their MP3 fi les with other participants. Although the original service was shut down by court order.

In July 2001, Napster shut down its entire network in order to comply with the injunction. On September 24, 2001, the case was partially settled. Napster agreed to pay music creators and copyright owners a $26 million settlement for past, unauthorized uses of music, as well as an advance against future licensing royalties of $10 million.

NAPSTER AND THE BEGINNING

iTunes was fi rst released on January 9 th 2001. SoundJam MP, developed by Bill Kincaid and released by

Casady & Greene in 1999, was renamed iTunes when Apple purchased it in 2000. SoundJam MP was an early Mac OS compatible MP3 player that was released in July 1998 and was available until June 2001. Apple, Inc. purchased SoundJam MP in 2000 and further developed the code to create iTunes version 1.0.

On January 9, 2001, iTunes 1.0 was released at Macworld San Francisco.

Reasons for its popularity and rapid development: - Portable. iTunes makes your music portable. You download your favorite songs from the internet and off you go. No need to remember to bring CD’s with you or a CD player. - Organized. The application that you download onto your computer allows you to organize your fi les in a multitude of ways. Organize by artist, genre, year or alphabetical just to name a few.- iTunes is free to download but costs to buy songs, albums and movies

ITUNES AND THE DEVELOPMENT

In September 2014 over 500 million users of iTunes were surprised when their music library had a free received U2’s new album for free.

“For a global rock band that has sold more than 150m records worldwide, won 22 Grammy awards and has a frontman whose ego is as big as the stadiums they sell out, U2’s explanation for why gave away their latest album to half a bill ion iTunes users seems unlikely: they were worried that otherwise no one would listen.” – The Guardian.

Many people were outraged when they looked at their music library on their iPhones and iTunes. A lot of comments about this were extremely negative saying that they didn’t want their album and it was taking up storage on their phones.

U2’s manager defended the band and the album by saying ‘It’s a gift from Apple. If someone doesn’t like the gift, they should delete it. We just want to share it with as many people as possible. If you don’t want it and you don’t need it, delete it.’

U2 have collaborated with Apple in the past. The terms of the deal for the iTunes release are not known.

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