he music is no longer sweet for compact discs.
Though the format still wears the crown as the recording industry's most reliable distribution system, sales have steadily declined for the past three years.
Industry analysts have blamed a souring economy and more diversions vying for Americans' attention. But they have fingered online music and piracy as the prime culprits. Even after the death of Napster, online services such as KaZaa, Morpheus and Gnutella thrive, attracting hundreds of millions of users.
"It is no coincidence that the industry has experienced declining sales for the past few years, while at the same time unauthorized services like KaZaa have had dramatic increases in usage," Recording Industry Association of America spokesman Jonathan Lamy said. "If you were to visit KaZaa or other similar services, you would see on their front page that they brag about how more than 180 million people have downloaded the software."
Introduced more than 20 years ago, the CD edged out former competitors the cassette tape and the LP to reign at the music stores. Now some industry analysts believe the Internet may be doing the same thing, but through more questionable means.
The CD's popularity hit a peak in 2000, when the industry sold more than 942 million units in the United States, generating more than $13 billion in revenues, according to RIAA figures. The following year sales fell a record 6.4 percent to 882 million. Last year the industry sold just over 800 million discs, earning $12 billion.
It was during 2000 that Napster, the now-defunct music-swapping service that once boasted 60 million users, began gaining notoriety, especially after heavy group Metallica threatened a lawsuit when it discovered its music was being distributed for free. Charges of racketeering and copyright infringement soon followed.
College students were among the most frequent users of the service, and record stores around campuses began to suffer as a result. In response many universities, including Ball State, established a firewall to prevent students from downloading.
"People want their music cheap, and they want it quick," Scott Lindell, general manager of Karma in Muncie, said. "If we don't have it, maybe they can't wait a few days for us to special order it."
Napster's death knell sounded in July of 2001 when San Francisco U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Patel ordered the service offline. The company formally declared bankruptcy and closed its doors in September of last year.
Some believe that the industry erred in its approach to online music.
"The companies tried to shut them (online services) down rather than merge with them," said Anthony Hunt, general manager of Indiana Public Radio. "Basically suing Napster to the point of shutting it down wasn't the right way to go."
Hunt believes that the industry should have worked with the services, offering a few songs to preview, giving users the opportunity to buy an entire album.
Napster's demise didn't stop the music. Piracy and bootlegging have also increased in recent years, with the advent of affordable CD burners, some of which go for as little as $50. Blank CDs can sell for as little as 50 cents apiece, compared to $18 for an original product in a record store. In 2000, more than one billion blank CDs were sold, according to a recent Chicago Tribune article.
The industry has been fighting fire with fire. Record companies last year began exploring the Internet as a possible avenue of distribution, offering services such as PressPlay and MusicNet which typically run $9.95 a month and offer a certain number of downloads and burns. Best Buy has recently begun experimenting with prepaid downloading cards.
"We're offering a better alternative," Lamy said. "Right now there are something like eight or nine legitimate music services online that are getting better each day. Several of them have content from all the major record companies. We think there is no longer any excuse for someone to steal music online."
In recent years several artists, including Prince and Natalie Merchant, have also broken away from their labels to release music through their Web sites. But online music, both legitimate and of questionable legality continues to thrive. Free services such as KaZaa, Gnutella and Morpheus continue to attract millions of users. By one estimate more than 100 million downloads per month are made through KaZaa alone. In comparison MusicNet, the most successful of the pay service, has a customer base of around 40,000, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal last year.
The music services that emerged in the wake of Napster have drawn much more controversy than their predecessor, however. To prevent litigation many of them are registered overseas and, unlike Napster, which only offered music, the newer programs feature everything from poetry to porn. Many of the services are fitted with spyware, which gathers information about a computer and its user. Viruses and worms are also problems.
"A legitimate service may cost more, but you'll have none of those issues," Lamy said. "It will be confidential and virus free."
The industry has begun toying with other technologies - notably the DVD-Audio and Superaudio CD formats, which are capable of storing much more music than then the current 80 minute CD.
But for many fans, the CD with its liner notes and cover art still holds a special allure.
"It's neat to have a picture on the album, and it's neat to say 'Look at this CD I have,' whereas becoming more involved with the software is not quite as sexy, " Hunt said. "All it looks like is a gold or silver platter. What's neat about that? You don't have the program notes or a lot of the other features that come with the CD."
Ultimately, IPFW communications professor Jonathan Tankel said, the Internet represents a natural progression for sound technology though he doesn't feel that it will usurp the CD or any other type of disc format anytime soon.
"The Internet is good for dealing with music that's not available on CD, or that is especially difficult to find. It's also more immediate and anyone can do it," he said. "But CDs have a better bit-rate than any other reproduction system. MP3 sound quality just isn't the same and it requires more interaction on the part of the user. It's certainly a tremendous force, but it won't take over the CD."
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