Napster Still Influences in 2009

After Napster was shut down, more and more consumers turned to other downloading sites in order to get their music. These consumers do not care that this is considered copyright infringement, they just think its silly to pay overinflated prices in order to listen to perhaps two tracks that they like and get 12 more that they don't like. When Itunes introduced its individual tracks price points, it was great until consumers realized that they did not want to pay $1 for a song that in essence is less than $0.50 when you buy the CD.

So what does the music industry do? You can't force consumers to buy songs right? Well it seems that some music industry heads have noticed consumer habits will not change, so they have to change their marketing initiatives in order to stay alive in this economy. New York Times did an excellent article on this. It provides a comprehensive list of what is going on in the EU as well as the U.S.:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/business/worldbusiness/19digital.html?em

Check it out.