Can the record labels survive the internet?

The financial page; Can the record labels survive the internet?
By James Surowiecki
June 5, 2000
The new yorker

Many people download music for free from the internet every day, something that is costing record labels money. Napster is one of the sites that allow people to download songs on the internet for free. Some people call this stealing, but this is seen as the future of music? Many sites followed Napster and are causing problems for record labels, which are still doing it ‘old school.’ Record labels seem to be holding on to their high priced CD’s. A survey by Napster has shown that people using Napster are willing to pay a monthly fee to download the music; this shows that people are still willing to pay for music as long as it is affordable. In order for the record labels to keep up with the rapid growth in technology, they need to reinvent themselves. James Suwowiecki suggests a partnership between record labels to create a site from which people can download all their music, in high quality (which site like Napster don’t always have) for a monthly fee. It would bring with it the advantage of losing the costs of producing and distributing goods, but if a change will actually occur is the change. Whatever the record labels might decide to do, in order to survive they need to change, and maybe within a couple of years we will be downloading our CD’s in a way that also benefits the record labels.