ABSTRACT
An efficient format for the expansion into remote markets, tape cassettes became the main sound carriers in
developing countries, and by the end of the 1980s cassettes were outselling other formats there by three to one. As a portable recording technology, the tape cassette has been used in the production, duplication, and dissemination of local musics and the creation of new musical styles, most notably punk and rap, thus tending to decentralize control over production and consumption. The term cassette culture has been applied to the ‘do-it-yourself ethic that underlies such practices, and the network of musicians and listeners it embraces. On the negative side, tape cassettes pose considerable problems of illegal copying and the violation of copyright.
