ABSTRACT
Before unraveling the mystery of the future of recorded music, we must fi rst examine the basic principle behind recorded music and how it is consumed. Then we must examine how, through the course of time, new innovative methods replace old methods of accomplishing this task. In a nutshell, recorded music allows the consumer to possess a captured musical performance and replay that performance whenever and wherever desired. The music business for the past 100 years has been supplying that to consumers in the form of a physical product. But many things have changed, especially in the fi elds of entertainment and communication. To understand the future, we must move away from the concept of supplying consumers with a physical product. After all, the goal is for the consumer to replay the recording at will, and modern technology does not mandate that it must be in a physical form. Instead, we should look at the record
business as music delivery systems , because the goal is to get consumers to pay for the convenience of listening to their favorite music on demand.
