Digital Music • the future 

avAcademia answers topical questions 

The MP3 technology is now 15-years old. The sale of MP3 devices stagnates or even slows down.

What comes next • what is the future of digital music • how will the music industry be able to make profits in the future?

There are good reasons for the decline: it is now possible to legally listen to music online, on the Internet. Young people are mainly using this possibility. MySpace and YouToube are increasingly used for free music consumption.

There number of websites dedicated to music and/or video streaming is continuously increasing.

• http://www.spotify.com/
• http://grooveshark.com/
• www.mymusicstream.com/
• www.naxos.com/  

Musical request program on the Web

Those online platforms provide between 6 and 10 million songs, free of charge, to their users. Single titles as well as whole albums can immediately be played or inserted into play lists. Income is generated by 20 to 30 seconds commercial spots inserted every 2 or 3 tracks, like on radio stations, with the difference that here the user composes his own musical program.

Also the record labels who are supplying their music on the web-portals against advance payment and commissions, approve these new distribution channels. Christoph Germann of Universal Music says: "This is a new business model and a new way to make again profit with music. We prefer this rather than having people downloading music illegally",

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