Exam Unit G325 - 50% of A2 - 2 hour exam - 100 marks - (50/50)

Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production

Section B: Contemporary Media Issues (Online Age)

G325 Section B: Media in the Online Age

Music Lesson 2

Today’s targets:• Assess the impact of the online age on musicians• Devise a marketing strategy based on the issues

raised in today’s and previous lesson

Rally Robin

To reflect on last lesson, and add to your points, take turns to state as many

positive and negative aspects as you can of how the music industry has changed.

Illegal file sharing has impacted on

CD sales

• Last lesson we looked at how our own consumption of music has developed with the internet, as well as the impact of the online age on the music industry in general.

• Today we are going to focus on issues from the point of view of artists.

Music in the online age

Music in the online age

Read this article together through following the link

Sure, all of this is well and good, but what are the dangers and where are the pitfalls of consuming music like this?

Illegal downloadsIllegal downloads are a major issue for not only the UK and US markets but the entire industry around the world.

For instance, did you know that the UK was recently voted the second worst offender in a world poll? And yes, you’ve guessed it – the US came top!

Around the room is information to elaborate on this and in groups you will create a map from memory to consider this information.

There is a lot of info but I suggest you take it point by point. This will really help you to extract and reduce the key information – skills you will need for your exam.

The United Kingdom is the second worst country in the world for illegal music downloads (behind the United States) with Manchester the worst city.

And the artist whose music is illegally downloaded most frequently is Ed Sheeran.

The findings of Musicmetric's in-depth study show that more than twice as many albums are downloaded illegally in the UK as are downloaded on legal music sites such as iTunes.

More than 33 million albums and 10 million singles were downloaded illegally in the first six months of this year from the popular file sharing network BitTorrent. Equating to a loss in retail sales of more than 500 million pounds, the figures highlight why music companies are concerned about the damage this might do to their long term sales.

Musicmetric's study shows that about 15 per cent of the UK population have downloaded music illegally so far this year. The majority of these are thought to be under 30.

Sheeran's album was illegally downloaded an average of 55.512 times every month. The singer said earlier this year that his legal album sales and illegal album sales were 'all relative'.

According to the report, the UK ranks second in the world as the highest user of illegal downloads, with the US topping the list. Rihanna's album Talk That Talk was the world's most pirated release, with Musicmetric tracking 1,228,313 downloads in the first half of 2012.

Illegal downloads map from memory

The five worst offending nations (with artist) in the last six months of 2012 were:1: United States, 96,868,398 total shares (most for Drake, Bruno Mars in 2013)2: United Kingdom 43,314,568 total shares (Ed Sheeran)3: Italy 33,226,258 total shares (Laura Pausini)4: Canada 23,953,053 total shares (Kanye West)5: Brazil 19,677,596 total shares (Billy Van)

Key statistics 2012(2013 where avaialble)

MusicMetric Most Pirated List Of 201301. Bruno Mars – 5,783,55602. Rihanna – 5,414,16603. Daft Punk – 4,212,36104. Justin Timberlake – 3,930,18505. Flo Rida – 3,470,825

• As well as illegal file sharing, legal download and music streaming sites, multimedia or social networking sites such as YouTube and MySpace have had an enormous impact on the industry.

• For artists themselves, sites such as these have opened up many new possibilities, arguably negating the potential threat to income posed by piracy.

• MySpace in particular has been significant in challenging traditional means of publicising and distributing music.

• Nine Inch Nails released their album With Teeth on their MySpace page prior to its official in-store release date.

• Artists such as Lily Allen and Arctic Monkeys gained rapid fame through publishing their music on MySpace, or having it promoted through word of mouth on fan sites.

Music in the online age

Music in the online age• Similarly, sites such as YouTube allow aspiring

musicians, many of whom could never realistically hope for a record deal, to distribute their music over the internet to a worldwide audience.

• Even file-sharing has been noted in some casesto benefit artists: Radiohead’s Kid A shot to thetop of the US Billboard charts upon release in2000, three months after songs from it had been leaked and downloaded by millions on Napster.

• No doubt encouraged by this, the band initially released their album In Rainbows in 2007 as a digital download only, asking customers to pay whatever amount they thought appropriate!

• Upon its retail release two months later, the album entered both the UK and US charts at Number One.

Time for independent researchOk then, so what do the artists have to say about this

and what is your opinion?

Log onto a laptop now and conduct some research. Be ready to share in 5 mins.

Time to consider theory

Links to key theorists

Bonus task if time

• Get into the same groups you worked in for your coursework project.

• Your task is to devise a clear, precise and detailed marketing strategy for your band’s music video/single – one which you feel will maximise your publicity and revenue.

• Take into account everything we have learned so far regarding music in the online age, as well as the additional material provided.

Independent study

If you are interested in specialising in this field, take away the extra information and read and reflect on it. Then conduct your own research and consider more artists’ views.