Online file sharing is a big business. According to a recent Times Online article, an average teenager’s iPod contains 800 illegal music files. Additionally, DrownedinSound.com reported that 95% of music downloads in 2008 were illegal. With its eyes set on all of this lost revenue, the music industry is successfully fighting back, leaving companies and individuals scrambling and looking for new (and still legal) ways to provide and share media, such as music, online.
Just in the past few years, several media streaming providers have popped up, including Hulu for television shows and Pandora for music.
Hulu, a collaborative effort by News Corp and NBC Universal, has seen rapid growth since its inception. With over 370 million streams each month, Hulu has grown into the largest streaming television site on the Web.
Pandora, a music site offers a novel approach to sharing music online. Labeled as a radio station, Pandora allows its users to create customized radio stations by entering their favorite artists into an engine, which then builds a playlist. While artists don’t seem to make money from the Site, Pandora does by referring listeners to iTunes to purchase music heard on the Site. Other major competitors in this space include Imeem and Last.fm.
As internet properties continue to launch media streaming sites, the industry will need to react. So the questions will remain – how long will these sites be viable, how will these sites impact the music and television industries and will new laws be enacted to stop this type of online streaming?
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