New Media Beats old Media (Essay Sample)

New Media Beats Old Media
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The CD is a digital disc of data storage that first came to the market in 1985. Since that time, billions of CD’s have been sold. The MP3 squeezes sound sequence into subtle files. Each of them was dominant at one time but now the MP3 is taking the fore. MP3 production has affected the production and use of the CD. This essay discusses the rivalry between MP3s and CDs. The essay also finds solutions for these problems.
In 1973, the eight track was invented, 1981 LP/EP, 1989 the tape was established before the CD. Computers read CDs in 1981, and they were available in the market in 1982. Upon their release, CDs took over the market received great sales and profits by selling 30 billion copies in one year. The period between 2000 and 2009 marked a time when CDs sales dropped by a large margin. In 2001, there was a 15 billion dollars profit but by 2009, the profits had decreased to 5 billion dollars, a 66% decrease in sales. The decrease in profits of CDs sales in 2009 saw at least three-quarters of all independent music shops closing down. The statistics show that the introduction of MP3 players caused a decline in CDs production, sales, and usage.
In order to deal with the decline of CDs sales and usage caused by introduction of MP3s, CDs companies have come up with ways to try to fight the competition from the MP3s. The anti-piracy software stops any illegal usage or copying of copyright music. Unfortunately, this method has failed because of the use of illegal file-swapping sites, which gives free music online, for example, torrent software. Another competitive strength by CDs over MP3s is the ability of quality sound from CD music. This good quality music gives CDs a competitive advantage over the MP3s.
CDs’ music provides high bit rate compared to music from Amazon or iTunes, although people who do not use headphones say they do not notice the difference between music from a CD and MP3 format. This means that a consumer can change the formats of the CD to any bit rate and format, which makes them compatible to any portable player that best suits the user for instance FLAC. This stands out as a strong competitive font as compared to restrictions set by companies such as Apple and Microsoft. The companies set it that the songs purchased from Zune Marketplace and iTunes can only be played in Zunes and iPods respectively. MP3 files are an easy download from the internet, which is good, but they lack the goodies that come with music from a purchased CD, though expensive. The goodies that come with the CD music is availability of liner notes, artist’s photos, and music lyrics, which mp3s fail to provide, gives people the willingness to provide the extra money to purchase a CD (Kusek & Leonhard, 2005).
The p...