The controversy surrounding this convergence of digital and recording technologies is captured by the New York Times' Jon Pareles. But the recording business sees MP3 as a Pandora's box of copyright destruction, unleashing anarchy and piracy while robbing musicians of royalties and record labels of capital. In effect, both sides are correct. There's bound to be serious legal scuffling between people who own copyrights and people who believe in the hacker credo that information wants to be free. Yet recorded music is considerably more than a corporate revenue source, and the implications of digital distribution go far beyond the particulars of software and gadgets and royalty collection.
Digital distribution can turn that sentiment into a reality.
First conceived of as a means of allowing independent bands and musicians to post their music online where it might attract a following, MP3 became a headache for the recording industry when music from the name artists they controlled began appearing on MP3 sites. Not only could users listen to their downloaded music from their hard drives, but they could make their own CDs from MP3 files and play those discs where ever and when ever they wished. Matters were made even worse for the recording companies when manufacturers such as Diamond Multimedia introduced portable MP3 players, further freeing the music from users' computers. Users can then transfer the audio to CDs or listen on their computers. Many observers, however, feel that not only is the recording industry too late in entering the online music field, but that the growing number of competing, incompatible compression technologies will only serve to further cement MP3's position as the standard of choice for audio-seeking Internet users.