Academic essay

3. Digital media put the tools of production into the hands of the everyday computer user making it incredibly easy to produce content. These creative skills used to be something that people worked to develop. Now it appears that amateurs can produce content of a fair standard within a relatively short period of time.

Where does this leave 'professionals' and highly-skilled artists?

Choose one specific area of creativity and discuss some of the challenges facing practitioners vs amateurs in producing digital content.


The aim of this essay is to critically analyse how the internet is used to display forms of creative media. It will focus on the art form of music and how amateur musicians achieve recognition and the impact this has on professional musicians. Outlets such as YouTube and MySpace will be explored. This essay will also discuss the issues, challenges and benefits that amateur and professional musicians face in regards to accessing the internet for publication means. It will also provide a brief overview of how music is distributed online.

Due to advances in the internet, there are now many ways in which people can create and distribute their own content. Some of the most popular ways to do this is through websites such as MySpace, YouTube and programs like LimeWire. With MySpace people can post their own music and advertise themselves on their profile. It’s highly accessible and it’s free, for the user and the consumer. The same goes for YouTube except you can post video as well as audio. With LimeWire you can upload your own music so that others can download it. But these are only a few websites, there are many more available that will allow you to distribute your own content, and get it well known. This provides great opportunity for amateurs in music.

A wannabe musician’s biggest challenge is gaining recognition, but now the internet has provided the means to get it. Amateurs can now use the internet to distribute and advertise their music. This is because it’s free and it’s easily accessible. It removes the need of hiring managers, recording studios and signing up with record labels and it’s the easiest way to get a large audience since anyone can gain access to the internet. When uploading original music content, people can also choose to remain anonymous or put it under a false name. This is because they could be using it as just as an outlet of their feelings or as a coping mechanism and are too embarrassed to put their name to it. A fair few people have gained fame through distributing their music on the net, two of them being Lilly Allen, and the band Short Stack. Both singer and band posted their music on their MySpace profile and through word of mouth everyone listened to their music, landing Lilly Allen a deal with a record Label resulting in her now being internationally famous. Short stack on the other hand, which started off as a garage band, didn’t get a record deal but due to their popularity on the net managed to release singles into the top 40 charts. But will people still pay to get music from professional artists when they can just browse the net and get the music they like for free from amateurs?

On the other hand, professional musicians are now facing bigger challenges due to the rise of amateurs. They may loose some of their audience who prefer to listen to more easily accessible music. The other factor is that the amateur music available on the net is free, where as you have to pay for professional music, so the professionals will be loosing income. LimeWire plays a huge factor in this as it allows consumers to download amateur and professional music free of charge. Another problem present for professionals due to the internet is plagiarism. Other amateur bands and individual artists can do a cover of an already released professional song, and post it on the net for others to download as their own original music.This type of thing can be largely seen on YouTube and possibly other sites were people have made and posted “emo screamo” versions of already existent songs, such as Britney Spears first single , Hit me baby one more time. People can also upload song covers to LimeWire under the original artist's name.Although there are a lot of problems occurring, there are a few benefits to the use of distributing content through the internet for professionals. They can use it as another medium for advertisement and to actually sell their work via iTunes. They can also sell their songs as ring-tones and use the net as a means for consumers to preview a part of their music, before they decide to buy it.

This essay has attempted to discuss the issues and challenges that surround both amateur and professional musicians. It has been concluded that the newly introduced amateur music industry does pose some threat to the professional music industry. With amateur music increasingly becoming popular through the net, consumers are turning to free downloading of their music rather than going into Kmart or Target and buying a professionals CD. Also with the opportunity of free self promotion and distribution of music provided by the internet, record label companies may not be needed later in the future, since everyone can now manage, create and distribute their own music all within their own home.

Bibliography

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