Advances in technology have much affected the music industry. In the past, music was stored in CDs and cassettes, physical storage media, and the accessibility was too poor. Listening to music always required buying CDs and CD players. However, people are faced with an increased accessibility to music as digital technology develops. Nowadays, people distribute music online in a digitized sound source format. This makes it accessible for everyone to listen to music. So, how can sound sources be digitized?
Before the development of capacity compression technology, sound was stored in CDs with high storage capacity. As the technology for compressing music files developed, music was able to be stored in an MP3 format which allowed sound sources to be stored in a smaller capacity than CDs. Since then, more compact compression and reproduction technologies such as WMA and MP3HD have gradually emerged. This allowed the sound source, originally stored in a CD due to its large capacity, to be stored in a PC and converted into an audio file. Compression technology allows the sound source to be stored anywhere the user demands.
The development of the Internet and network have also affected the music industry sequentially. The space where the sound source can be stored expanded from a single PC to unlimited numbers of PCs by using a network that connects computers worldwide. This makes it possible to share it with many users without being stored. By uploading music to
portals and platforms on the Internet, the world population can listen to music even if they don’t own PCs.
The impact of technological advances on the music industry is significant these days. CDs are now obsolete products, and the digital music market now occupies nearly 90 percent of the music industry. Listening to music with CDs on the radio has passed. As such, technological development also helps the musical field. If more technologies are applied to the music market in the future, they will bring about numerous innovations.
By. Sungju Park