Music value chain

Music value chain 1. Introduction The music industry has been facing radical changes during the last few decades due to the introduction of IS technologies which have reshaped it in depth. More particularly the music value chain has been experiencing an intensive change and evolution in many aspects: the distribution to consumer is more direct, intermediating parties are reducing and prices are constantly changing. The internet, an open information system, legally and illegally paves the way to the creation of a fresh music product, offering more choices to consumers. Consumers are now able to listen to music in electronic forms: MP3s and ringtones are procured in a large scale through internet. The IS delivery vehicle has undoubtly added value to the consumers. But what about the â€Å"Big 4† music companies?[1] How have they accepted this major shift in their business industry? Have they tried to resist or more essentially are they able to resist and is that kind of reaction to their best interest? The industry that celebrated its success in the Nineties now has to restate its position. The numbers are alerting: â€Å"Die Welt† newspaper reports a 16% dropping turnover for sound storage media. Nonetheless the music industry story has not yet ended. It is rather being written from the beginning. Since the old business model does not function at all under the shade of the IS, companies have to use the new technologies and cope with the fast pacing development. In my opinion what is most of the times considered as danger could be proved a great opportunity. The music industry is not perishing; it is just reforming. People will always need music and music companies will continue to exist as long as they decide to adapt to the new IS reality. We are referring to a reformation of something that could be an entirely innovative business opportunity. Apple with the first online music store, i-Tunes, paves the way to a new era and steals a big piece of the music market pie. 2. The music industry: A continuously reshaping industry The music industry history is mainly a story of innovation that goes back to the 18th century. Music creation is as old as human existence but the effort to market and commercialize music counts only a few centuries; In the mid 18th century composers like Amadeus Mozart started searching ways to sell their music and performances to the general public. In the 19th century sheet music, a hand-written or printed form of musical notation, was the core product sold by the music industry but it conveyed an important limitation: it was addressed to a particular audience, people who could read music notation. In the 20th century the sheet industry was replaced by the â€Å"record industry†. The source that led to this reshaped environment was technological innovation. The label corporations commonly known as the â€Å"Big 6†: BMG, EMI, MCA, PolyGram, Sony and WEA, dominated the music industry. Today the â€Å"Big 6† have transformed into the â€Å"Big 4† after Sony merged with BMG. The following graph depicts each labels share[2]. The most important stages in music industrys evolution in the 20th century were: The introduction of cassettes (around 1960). The introduction of walkman: The era of transportable music begins (around 1980s). The introduction of CDs: CDs opened a window of wide capabilities for music consumers. (1990). At this point the music industry boomed: the market growth was huge and mark ups were fairly large. Nevertheless the CD fairy tale would soon come to an end: After 1995 the market started inevitably shrinking. The increasing internet penetration along with the large price decline of hardware and software enhanced the IT industry development. The music industry was not unaffected by the emerging transmission possibilities of digital information, which could take the form of music information as well. It was time for digital distribution and digital production to take the lead. The technological improvements created a safe ground for entrepreneurs to step in: They had the tools and it was about time to put them together and create the opportunity. Further on we will refer to two successful business models that give us a good idea of what the future music industry will be all about: Napster and Apples i-tunes. 3. Recent trends and challenges emerging from the use of IT and IS in the music industry.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As stated the music industry has been experiencing a variety of challenges because of the fast pacing technological development. New forms of competition have entered the business game antagonising the â€Å"Big 4† and deeply transforming the music value chain. All major stakeholders in the business -artists, consumers and companies- have been affected in numerous ways. The music companies are on the side of the losers: They have tried to resist and have won some battles but they knew from the start that eventually the war would be lost. The technological development cannot be stopped as the earth will not stop revolving around the sun. a. Digital technologies. Which where the core technological developments that have led to the reformation of the music industry? According to Nguyen-Khac T. Q.[3], the parallel evolution of the following four technologies has created an amazingly new business environment: Software development has enabled a fast exchange of data through internet. Compression technology and encryption solutions are only some of the tools currently used by consumers. Additionally, the use of user friendly operation systems (like Windows in contrast to MS-Dos) has enabled people of different backgrounds, ages and abilities to take advantage of all benefits offered by a PC. Hardware development. Personal PC was not always a massive product due to its high cost. Throughout the years prices declined thanks to the decreasing costs that led to massive production (economies of scale). Transportation technology development and more essentially the appearance of internet. The innovation of P2P and network technology. The impact of the above development has been severe for the music industry. A demonstrative example concerning the way P2P affected the music industry was Napster. The illegal download platform Napster was a file sharing service which took advantage of the P2P file sharing technology. The way P2P works is depicted below.[4] Napster became popular in college campuses. The main idea was that each person connected to the network had to share a portion of his private music library in exchange to download everything anyone else had made available. The transaction costs were limited to the connection fee. The result was that all of a sudden an enormous library of music, of all kinds, was created. RIIA brought Napster to court and Napster eventually lost the trial however its pattern has been the source of inspiration for other similar concepts. Although Napster was shut down the decline of the â€Å"Big 4† revenues did not stop. In contrast it was enhanced by the negative publicity emerging by the law sue against Napster. In addition to Napster and P2P networks, the general hardware and software development has enabled consumers copy and save digital music data for private use on their computers. This phenomenon was called piracy but some consumers have considered it as a fair game since the music companies have gained millions for decades now by imposing prices with high profit margins taking advantage of the oligopoly they have created. Moreover consumers in the past were obliged to buy songs in the form of â€Å"album batches†, paying an entire album even though they were truly interested to obtain 2 or 3 songs which were worth spending money for. The use of new technologies enables consumers to resist to this type of constraints, imposed by the music companies. The music companies have iteratively launched campaigns against piracy nevertheless they cannot bend the existing consumer behavior which is based on the perception that exchanging music is a non harmful procedure containing no ethic al dilemmas. b. New technologies leading a new business model: The traditional model versus the new e-value chain model. Under the shade of IS and IT the music value chain has been transformed to an â€Å"e-chain†. In the traditional model there was a tangible product the CD but in the new model the product is intangible; it is the information itself. In the Australian Conference on Information Systems the following conceptual model was presented.[5] As depicted, in the new model, the MP3 file -now considered as the product- is distributed to consumers through online music stores, mobile content providers or artist websites. Moreover music can now be recorded in home studios instead of professional recording studios and be distributed in the already described ways instead of being sold in the form of CDs, through retail stores. The benefits acquired by this new model concerns mainly consumers but also the â€Å"music product† suppliers. First of all the cost of production is substantially reduced and the manufacturing costs are completely eliminated. Also intermediaries, mainly distributors are kicked out of the supply chain since they are not needed. All these changes have as a result a minimum cost for the music provider, easy and fast access to the product for the consumer who also has the chance to pick products (music tracks) in an appealing price and according to his preferences. This dynamic and flexible structure will eventually lead to the proliferation in the number of people involved in the supply chain. Additionally the role of the consumer and artist is now more essential. It is not anymore a game of four since there are no barriers (high production cost, competitive advantage due to full vertical integration) to enter this reformed music industry. c. Current market trends: The financial impact of IT and IS on the ‘Big 4 As previously analyzed the â€Å"Big 4† have developed an aggressive strategy against the new business environment emerging from the development of IS and IT. Even though they managed to shut down Napster practically they are unable to stop the creation of similar models. Even worse they insist on retaining the traditional model and hesitate to take the next step. Agility seems to be one of their least considerations and thats why it is no surprise each year their revenues are dramatically declining. Even if the music market is facing a shrinking trend, the digital sales piece of the pie is getting larger. According to IFPI revenues for cassettes, CDs and vinyl in the world dropped 25%, from $38.6 billion in 1999 to $29 billion in 2007.[6] Analysts at Forrester Research state that â€Å"music sales in the US will decline to $9.2 billion in 2013, from $10.1 billion in 2008†[7]. 4. The future While the music companies remained oblivious to the technological changes the music economy was reshaping and a company unrelated to music made the decisive step to create an innovative business model based on online legal distribution taking advantage of the benefits provided by mp3 files. This company was Apple who literally took the bread out of the mouth of the music companies. In 2003 it officially launched the first online music store: i-Tunes. The price model used was very attractive to consumer: each download cost 0.99 cent. Apple managed to offer a one stop shop to customers by exploiting the internet and digital distribution options. This awe inspiring impetus in the music industry panicked the music companies. They tried to defend their market share against digital distribution through law sues and merges instead of being flexible and adoptive to the increasingly transforming environment and making use of the new tools offered by the development of IT and IS. That enabled Apple to made the check mat move. The core competencies of Apples platform are speed, usability and cost effectiveness. Apples success was remarkable; in its first two online weeks it sold over two million songs[8]. This fact was largely due to the highly integrated system used. The music companies, now more than ever, have to create their own business model of an online music supply pattern. The use of IT in music industry can be considered an order winner for Apple whereas for the â€Å"Big 4† an emerging necessity to keep them in business. Current trends show that the use of IT will become an order qualifier. While executives of the music companies like John Rose, a former executive of EMI appear reluctant, believing that nothing ensures â€Å"that digital economics can make up for the drop in physical†[9] Atlantic, a unit of Warner Music Group claims that half of its sales come from digital music product sales. The future belongs to the digital music business and even if the core product music tracks in the form of mp3- does not make up for the losses from CD sales there are many supportive products such as: ringtones, ringbangs, subscription services that can compensate. 5. Conclusion As analyzed the use of IT and IS has brought a revolution in the music industry: Customers attain more bargaining power since the monopoly of â€Å"The Big 4† converted into a world of many â€Å"dot† choices. The exploitation of the benefits created by the recent developments has proved profitable; i-Tunes and Atlantic are the most prominent examples. Hence, there is a great opportunity ahead, if innovation is perceived to generate revenues and if more direct distribution options are used to cut off costs. The music companies have a negative perception about the use of open information systems in selling music and tried ineffectively to fight back. Instead they should have tried to respond to the challenge and reform their business model in order to survive in the music market. Being reluctant to adopt the new technology only gives way to companies such as Apple to take the lead along with their business share. 6. Bibliography Arango T., November 26 2008. â€Å"Digital Sales Surpass CDs at Atlantic† New York Times. Emerson G. M., 2007. â€Å"The Apple iTunes Music Store: How Apple Got it Right†, Advertizing and marketing report. http://www.admarketreview.com/public_html/air/ai200308.html (Glen Emerson Morris has been a senior consultant for Yahoo!, Ariba, WebMD, Inktomi, Apple, and Adobe.) Moloney, Belinda; Cybulski, Jacob; and Nguyen, Lemai, â€Å"Value Perception in Music Information Systems† (2008). ACIS 2008 Proceedings. Paper 73 Nguyen-Khac T. Q., 2003. The music industry in a dilemma (research paper for the ITS conference Helsinki, August 2003. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#History Sony BMG, Universal, Warner, EMI World music market sales shares, according to IFPI (2005) from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#History Nguyen-Khac T. Q., 2003. The music industry in a dilemma (research paper for the ITS conference Helsinki, August 2003 Nguyen-Khac T. Q., 2003. The music industry in a dilemma (research paper for the ITS conference Helsinki, August 2003. Moloney, Belinda; Cybulski, Jacob; and Nguyen, Lemai, â€Å"Value Perception in Music Information Systems† (2008). ACIS 2008 Proceedings. Paper 73 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry Arango T., November 26 2008. â€Å"Digital Sales Surpass CDs at Atlantic† New York Times. Emerson G. M., 2007. â€Å"The Apple iTunes Music Store: How Apple Got it Right†, Advertizing and marketing report. http://www.admarketreview.com/public_html/air/ai200308.html Glen Emerson Morris has been a senior consultant for Yahoo!, Ariba, WebMD, Inktomi, Apple, and Adobe. Arango T., November 26 2008. â€Å"Digital Sales Surpass CDs at Atlantic† New York Times.

Finding Forrester Film Review Essay

The film Finding Forrester was an interesting, eye-catching, attention grabbing and exciting movie. The writer Mike Rich did a great job of creating the plot to be funny and fast paced. The director of the film, Gus Van neatly directed the scenes characters to make the film more entertaining. Producers Sean Connery, Laurence Mark, and Rhonda Tollefson had made a great decision on investing what they could into this film which was released on December 19, 2000. Jamal Wallace is an inner city kid who is from Bronx, New York and is an exceptionally good basketball player, and is a genius at writing. Always as a C student and not being challenged at his old school because his school sees he is capable of more than what he does, but when he scores highly on his standardized tests, Jamal comes to the attention of the prestigious prep school in New York Manhattan to further his education and play in the school basketball team. One night, Jamal and his friends decided to break into somebodyà ¢â‚¬â„¢s house and steal a letter opener, but a man comes out and frightens Jamal away. Jamal later returns to the old man’s apartment to apologize and retrieved his backpack. Jamal then returns home to find out that the old man had read and written in his journal entrà ©es. When Jamal again returned to the apartment of the old man, he soon befriends the reclusive writer, William Forrester. The friendship leads to William to overcome his reclusiveness and for Jamal to overcome the racial prejudices and pursue his true dream. Forrester helps Jamal to improve and forward his writing, but Jamal’s English teacher does not believe that Jamal is capable writing so well and assumes that Jamal has been cheating. Enraged, Jamal copies some of what Forrester had once written, but he gets caught for plagiarism. In the end Jamal gets Mr. Forester out of his old apartment into the real world to read something that Jamal had written and also to say that he had given Jamal the right to take his ideas. There were many themes displayed throughout the film such as friendship, and overcoming, struggles and obstacles and finding real friends along the way. Bothe William Forrester and Jamal Wallace find friendship in an unlikely way because of their passion for reading and writing. Although they are different form each other, they are drawn together by similar interests. In the movie Finding Forrester, William Forrester would not have been able to confront his fears or reconnect with the world if not for his friendship with Jamal. For example, at one scene at the end of the movie, In Forrester’s Will, Jamal is given a package, keys to Forrester’s apartment, and a letter. In the letter, Forrester thanks Jamal for helping him revive his desire to live. Also the package had the manuscript for Forrester’s second novel, called Sunset, for Jamal to complete onward.] There were many film techniques that the filmmaker had used throughout the movie to explain the theme of friendship and overcoming obstacles and struggles. In addition, the filmmaker used the technique of point of view which is shown in the movie when the camera was trying to make us feel what it was like to see things from the person’s eyes. The setting was in New York City specifically in the Bronx. Shot Aerial was shown when Jamal and his friends were playing basketball; the filmmaker was showing the relationship between Jamal and his friends in the Bronx. A shot, Close-up was shown when Mr. Forrester was looking through the peep hole showing how hard it was for friendship to be form. Shot, slow motion was shown when Jamal’s basketball team was entering the gym for the game. Shot, tracking was used by the filmmaker when he showed the city at the beginning. Sound, Diegetic was show when the boys were at a party and music was playing in the background. Sound, Nondiegetic was shown when Jamal was talking about the girl who heard sounds. Light, back was shown when Jamal was at Mr. Forrester house and stands next to the window. Light, Source was shown in Mr. Forrester’s house there was a lamp in the background. Motif as shown in the film when Jamal starts using the typewriter that Mr. Forrester was using before and it’s significant because on that typewriter is where Jamal learned how to become a better writer. The filmmaker was successful in my eye because he truly captured every little moment Jamal and Mr. Forrester had while on their journey to success in finding a friend and overcoming struggles they face. The film was a well-made movie with great actors. The Film Finding Forrester was a great movie for young adults like to watch because it has a strong theme of how to overcome hurdles and struggles and making new friends along the way. If it was not for William Forrester taking in Jamal Wallace as his protà ©gà ©, Jamal would not be going to a really great school which challenges him and would not become the amazing writer he has become, most importantly made such a good friend like Mr. Forrester. In the movie the filmmaker incorporated the ten film techniques to show how Mr. Forrester and Jamal worked together to help each other out in overcoming obstacles and struggles.

Analysis of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Bridegroom” Essay

During the First World War, death was a constant threat. Soldiers faced it every day in the trenches, and more succumbed to it. Rudyard Kipling’s Epitaphs of War represents the impact those deaths had across much of the world. â€Å"The Bridegroom† exposes the last thoughts of a dying soldier through an extended metaphor, personification and tone. First of all, the title and first stanza reveal that the speaker, a young soldier, is either dying or already dead. Traditionally, a bridegroom defines a man on his wedding day. In this poem, Kipling personifies the bride as death and therefore the title refers to a man on his last day. The speaker is a soldier fighting in the trenches, writing or at least speaking out to his wife back home. The first stanza initiates the apologetic and sorrowful tone that is used throughout the poem. The soldier asks his wife not to call him â€Å"false† as he rests in other arms. He apologizes to his beloved for abandoning her for a new mistress, death. The arms not only represent death’s embrace, but they also evoke falling to the weapons of the enemy in battle. The stanza also demonstrates that the couple’s marriage is recent as the speaker mentions his wife’s â€Å"scarce-known breast.† The second stanza clearly brings forward the poem’s theme. The soldier mentions his â€Å"more ancient bride,† death. She is qualified as ancient because she has always existed, not only with him but since the beginning of time. He also describes a cold embrace, the word cold working on several levels here. It refers to the deceased and his rigidity, but it also expresses his reluctance to follow death. By calling her â€Å"constant,† Kipling emphasizes the reality of death on the battlefield; she was faithful and always lurked over the soldier. The third stanza describes how the young man escaped from his â€Å"often set marriage† with death through unexplained miracles. We can suppose that he narrowly survived several life-threatening events, thereby cheating death,  which relates back to his â€Å"cheating† on his living marriage. His â€Å"new† marriage is now perceived as â€Å"consummate,† a term which is usually used for unions made complete through the sexual act. This union, however, refers to the soldier’s falling into death’s embrace, finally touching her after a long apprehension and ultimately lying in her bed, his grave. The term â€Å"consummate† can also represent perfection, which, in this marriage refers to the fact that it was meant to be. The last line reinforces the consummation by saying that the union â€Å"cannot be unmade.† Death cannot be unmade; it is a permanent state as the ideal marriage is, but it also returns to the metaphorical bed which will forever remain unmade. In the last stanza, the tone reaches a lull, yet is still filled with sorrow. The speaker urges his wife to â€Å"live,† to move on and allow life to â€Å"cure† her of the painful memory of him. Kipling uses a metaphor to treat memories as a painful disease that can only be cured by time. The soldier expresses fear of being forgotten with the word â€Å"almost.† He wants to be remembered although he mostly desires for his beloved to regain happiness. The final two lines return to a more somber tone as the soldier states he will have to endure the â€Å"immortality† of memories in death. In the end, we can feel the young man has a greater acceptance of his state as he begins using the pronoun â€Å"us† to qualify himself and death. The marriage, having been consummated, as previously stated, they are now one. Immortality is an evocative word, which fits perfectly into the general theme. The soldier is now immortal, fixed in time with his memories and never able to make new ones. The term also refers back to death, which is immortal in its own way. To conclude, Rudyard Kipling’s â€Å"The Bridegroom’ expresses the difficult process associated with death. The various metaphors and personification bring forward the themes in an apologetic, somber tone. The nameless soldier represents all young men who died young unfairly in the trenches, afraid of being disloyal to their countries.

High School Students With Anxiety - 1234 Words

â€Å"You will only need a pencil for this section of the test. When time is up, please close your test booklet and put your pencil down.† I feared these words. I feared any phrases that consisted of the word â€Å"test.† This is the phrase that is used to doom high school students with anxiety early in the morning. This is the phrase that is used to doom high school students with tears and misery. As my testing instructor spoke, my hands became sweaty, my face was dripping with sweat, my stomach was tied in a knot, my body was shivering, and my eyes were weary. I knew what time it was, and I dreaded it ever since. It was time to attempt to accomplish a perfect score on something impossible, rare, and unbearable - the ACT. As the instructor kept talking about the rules and regulations of the ACT, I thought back to the long weeks of studies. These three weeks of studying were the longest weeks I ever experienced. Throughout the three weeks, all I ever thought about was p erfection. 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