The online revolution has proved as damaging to independent labels as to multinational companies. How far do you agree?

There are different ways to look at this subject, and many different answers can be put as it depends on the audience's opinions however in my case i feel there is a lot of information present which illustrates that the online revolution is proving damaging to the Major labels rather than the independent labels, there are factors to be addressed:

Firstly the most important thing is remembering the purpose of music and the role it plays in our life, many people believe it affects their mood and how they feel, others say it connects them with the outside world. Some use music to put forward views hoping someone picks up the message.

Right the music industry is predominantly run by the major labels this includes Universal, these labels have a lot of market share so have the power to choose contracts to give to artists and usual or up an till recently did the producing, publishing, marketing and distributing of music. Recently the advancement of technology has had an impact on this as the Internet has now has opened opportunities for Independent firms such as Domino to start-up businesses in a market which before seemed impossible to enter because of the vast market share or the major labels. This means the demand for major labels have decreased because these independent firms are offering greater percentage of sales revenue.

Another important factor is that the revolution means the format of which tracks have changed from CD to MP3, is beneficial for new independent firms as they can sell electronic forms of the music to customers, which lowers there start up cost as they don't have to stock hold and employee people to do so whilst existing Major firms still distributing CD will have to cope with.

The INTERNET has linked millions of people to a network allowing for making advertisement more efficient for independent firms unlike before, allowing new upcoming artists to be promoted much more efficiently at considerably lower cost using sites such as Myspace or Facebook. This is extremely damaging for Major labels as they are no longer required to forward artist as they themselves can do so.

On a negative note for both types of firms is that the Internet revolution has brought up a method of sharing music without a lience this is called piracy, this affects both labels but has a greater impact on the major labels as they produce hardware at a much greater rate so if piracy is occurring they loose out on customers which may have bought a CD.

Overall i believe that the online revolution has been more damaging to the multinational organisations as it has allowed artist to find their own feet and start up with very little cost, and high profit levels, whilst increasing piracy also of which contributes to a loss, but like the major lable, piracy also has an impact on the independent labels.