BY HANNIBAL ALEXANDER

The music industry was under attack in 1999, at least that’s what the record labels wanted everyone to believe. They became immediately threatened with the introduction of Napster, the first widely used Peer 2 Peer service which allowed music lovers to grab nearly any song ever recorded for free. When overall music sales took a reported loss of over 6 billion from 1999 to 2000, they had major cause for concern and Napster’s creator Shawn Fanning became the target. Court cases and outcries from certain popular musicians vilified the P2P service and it’s users as thieves. While these lawsuits were going on, several other P2P services sprang up and music lovers couldn’t resist. What the labels didn’t realize was in their pursuit to end Napster a whole new digital age of Music was coming along. Instead of trying to move with the progress of the internet and technology, they tried to stop it. Ultimately the power of the record labels was taken out of their hands and given to the Music fans.

This new digital age of music has become a place to discover music you might not ever hear for free. It’s really like a public library for music, where one can sample new and classic music they’ve always been curious about. The initial heart of the P2P services was to let people listen, pull and share from their personal music libraries.

Before Napster, record labels almost completely removed retail singles from the market, forcing a fan of a song to buy the full album.  This of course made the P2P services almost a necessity after buyers felt burned by less than stellar albums. Napster, Limewire, Kazaa and other services helped music lovers discover new things and expand their music knowledge.

Now, we have YouTube and other music sites and internet radio sites like Pandora, Last.fm and Imeem that work with your musical tastes to suggest artists that listeners may have never become familiar with. Even iTunes and Amazon, sites that were made to actually purchase music, offer previews of music: an option that wasn’t there for music lovers in the late 90’s.

Another thing this digital age offers to music lovers and fans is closer access to their favorite artists. No longer having to depend on radio and music video networks, fans can listen and watch their favorite artists any time they please. And on top of that, some international performances and television appearances fans might not otherwise be able to see are available to view at any time on YouTube. In recent years artists have become more in tune with the digital age, and unreleased songs, videos and even leaks of new music sporadically become available online as well on the artists terms.

Fans can keep track of what artists are doing even when they aren’t working. Up to the minute entertainment and blog sites like TMZ, Necole Bitchie and Bossip show fans their favorite artists’ comings and goings and who they are dating and what they are wearing. A bit invasive sure, but some fans feel the need to know all of these things. In addition, there are some very popular ways for artists to connect more closely with their fans. Artists like Jason Mraz, Tyrese, Diddy and countless others use Twitter to give inside information, or just to communicate on a personal level with fans. Camera sites like Skype and UStream have also become rather popular with Kelly Rowland, Trey Songz and Nicki Minaj using the service to have a more face to face interaction with fans.

An even greater way the digital age has helped music are sites like MySpace Music and YouTube, which have been great tools for artists to be discovered by record labels. By being able to expose their music to millions of people on their own, artist have turned the tables and have labels contacting them based on their popularity online. Popular artists Lilly Allen, The Veronicas and Grammy winners Colbie Caillat and Taylor Swift were all discovered via MySpace. Pop phenomenon Justin Bieber started a bidding war between Justin Timberlake and Usher based on his videos on YouTube. There are countless Indie artists that have gained core followings thanks to the internet. Even as you read this, artists, producers and songwriters are hooking up via Facebook and Twitter to create the sound of the future.

Over 10 years later, Napster is completely old news to both music lovers and the industry that tried to attack it. The constant development and advances in technology over the past decade will always bring new ways to enjoy music. The music industry is looking up these days; album and single sales have been increasing over the past few years. Although annual sales are now around 1.5 billion, where it used to be around 12 billion in 1999, the record labels are finally looking to progress with technology instead of trying to fight against it.