megaspora (english edition) » 2007 » April

The recording industry will change

By: psr, 2007-04-02

Sound recording was not possible before 1878. Until then, there was no industry build around the sale of sound recordings. Years after recording was invented, businesses started to emerge to distribute and sell music and voice recordings.

Buyers of recorded music were interested in the music, not specifically in the physical support needed to record music on (wax cylinders in the beginning, vinyl discs later on, and cassette tapes or compact discs more recently). However, in order to obtain a copy of that music, they needed to acquire the wax cylinder.

Such business model was based on the need to use physical media to distribute music, which could only be made using a complex and expensive process not available to a music buyer.

And so the recording …