In today’s culture, more and more celebrities are creating and maintaining their fame via the internet and the World Wide Web. In a tweet that I saw online, one woman points out that artists are now able to find assistance and management via the web, as well as to easily distribute and advertise their music to wide audiences with very little effort.
Social media has created a platform in which artists can essentially start and continue their careers. Everyone knows the story of people like Justin Bieber, whose fame was brought about through a simple YouTube video.
Despite all the benefits of the web, though, it is also being used against artists and the music industry. Napster, the first filesharing website in existence, created a wave of other filesharing methods, as well as talks about the “ethical delivery” of writing and, specifically, song.
Madonna took this offense to heart, responding by creating blank files to be distributed with a simple “What the f*ck do you think you’re doing?”
In this new culture of media, it is so entirely easy to find and distribute artists’ work for entertainment, whether it is the artist distributing his or her own work, or others, attempting to take advantage of the artist.
Like Madonna, other big names have protested this feature of the web, and of free or cheap filesharing devices: Taylor Swift recently removed all of her music from Spotify, asserting that her art is valuable, and that music streaming services belittle its worth.
As the web eases some issues, it creates entirely new ones, leaving us with the ultimate question of whether or not it was truly a positive innovation for the entertainment industry.
Spark My Mind 
This was very interesting to read about, especially when you mentioned Taylor Swift taking her music off of Spotify. I just noticed this week that she didn’t have songs on it anymore. I have heard contradicting stories about social media for music. Spotify claims that they are helpful for artists, while sites like Youtube and Napster steal the artists’ rights. I think it boils down to the best ways to communicate with fans. Sure, Spotify may not give the artists all of their CD proceeds, but it creates fans and increases opportunities for listening. Taylor Swift is big enough that all of her fans will buy off of iTunes; however, the up-and-coming artists may struggle more without this outlet.
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this is an really interesting topic that you posted about.Like what I posted in my article social media has its pros and cons where it can promote artist works but people can still upload artist music on youtube which doesnt really help the artist.
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