Streaming

Streaming

Lesson 5.5

In your last lesson, you learned that today, the world experiences music mostly through digital means. In the age of technology, music has had to adapt, and it is now easily accessible with just a few clicks of a mouse.

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Open Ended

Does the way you experience music change depending on how you listen to it? Explain.

Respond in 1 to 2 complete sentences.

You can start your response with:

The way I experience music . . .

You are familiar with many forms of technology such as smartphones, tablets, and computers. Due to the rise in the use of technology, music has had to evolve and adapt in how it reaches consumers. This has led to digital platforms that are both popular and innovative ways for radio to remain relevant.

In the last lesson, you learned that digital music platforms are programs and applications that can be used to search for, listen to, and purchase music that has been made in or converted into a digital form. Digital platforms have paved the way for streaming music services. Streaming means that the content is accessed and played directly from the music service's website. Even though streaming has created many new ways for consumers to access and experience music, it does have its drawbacks in that some musical artists allow their music to be on only certain platforms. You will learn later in the lesson why that is.

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Open Ended

How has streaming changed how a consumer can access music?

Traditional Radio

​​FM and AM Car Radio

​In the last lesson, you learned that traditional radio was one of the first forms of music and entertainment technology. It was developed in the 1890s and quickly became the main source of entertainment in many homes. Music had to be transmitted in the form of radio waves to travel from a radio studio to the home radio. Then, in the 1920s, those same radio waves made it to cars when the first car radios were installed.

As radio waves move away from the transmitter, they become more difficult for a traditional radio to pick up. This means that traditional radio stations serve only a specific area or territory. To overcome this limitation, satellite radio was invented and utilized satellite technology to send and receive a new type of radio signal. Now, radio was not limited, and a radio station could be heard anywhere in the world where a satellite radio receiver existed. Unlike traditional radios, satellite radios cannot be used for no cost. They require a subscription to the service.

Depending on which subscription you choose, you can either have limited channels or have access to all of the service's resources, such as podcasts, along with the music channels.

Launched in 1990, Sirius XM is one of the most popular satellite radio companies in the United States. Its channels are divided by musical genre. Some genres have multiple channels; for example, there are at least five different channels for country music.

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Not only has streaming changed how music lovers and consumers experienced music, but it has also changed how musicians produce and distribute their music. The U.S. government recognized the need to protect artists' creations. In May of 1790, Congress enacted the first copyright law. Today, copyright refers to the exclusive legal right to produce, publish, perform, sell, or distribute a creative work. Copyright laws are meant to protect the musical work of an artist and the artist's label.

While copyright has always been a concern for artists, digital platforms created a new danger to artists' rights. Digital platforms and streaming replaced cassette tapes, CDs, and vinyl records and changed how consumers access and interact with music. Consumers were able to copy songs and share them with others with no compensation to the musicians or record companies. Copyright laws prohibited consumers from copying songs and sending them to others, as that was considered stealing the artist's work.

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Streaming

Poll

Which feature would be most important to you when choosing a streaming service?

• the cost

• the type of music sharing

• the artists and music available

• device types the app runs on

• additional offer of podcasts and videos

iTunes was launched in 2001 as a place for consumers to purchase music rather than going to a store to purchase CDs or records. In 2015, Apple Music was launched as a subscription streaming service that provides radio stations, video streaming, and music sharing.

Sharing music in iTunes is a matter of sending playlists or specific songs to others who have the streaming platform.

Consumers can also copy a link to a playlist and paste that into an email or a message for others to access it.

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iTunes/Apple Music

Spotify is a media player and music streaming platform that was created in Sweden in 2006.

Spotify has a free version, which contains advertisements. Consumers can also pay for a subscription, which allows for ad-free listening and access to offline playlists.

Spotify acts like satellite radio by delivering music like a personal radio station. Spotify allows consumers to explore and choose playlists already created by others. It can also let users create their own playlists and even suggest similar music for a user to try.

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Spotify

Open Ended

How do the sharing agreements of artists with streaming services, such as iTunes and Spotify, affect the artists' income? Explain.

Seeing the success of digital streaming platforms such as iTunes and Spotify, Sirius XM decided to branch out from satellite radio and began Pandora Radio, a competing music streaming service. Unlike iTunes and Spotify, Pandora designs stations based on the likes of the consumer. To create a station, the consumer types or searches for a song or an artist, and Pandora then creates a playlist based on the characteristics of the song or the artist's work.

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Pandora Radio

Another digital platform on which a user can experience music is YouTube. YouTube was was created in 2005 as a video-sharing platform for mobile and computer devices. It is supported with advertisements.

It was designed so that users could upload and search for videos on a variety of topics, including music. People often watch music videos on YouTube.

On YouTube, users have the ability to share links to videos with others and to subscribe to content from creators. It also has an added feature that allows users to comment on videos.

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Youtube

Multiple Select

Choose the ways in which your experience when listening to music on a streaming service is different from your experience when listening on the radio.

Select all that apply.

• ability to switch musical stations

• ability to listen to specific channels

• ability to create playlists

• ability to search songs

Multiple Choice

What is one way you could possibly violate copyright laws?

• giving your friend a digital copy of a song you purchased through a reputable digital platform

• 
  purchasing a digital copy of a song from a reputable digital platform

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  playing a song for a friend from a digital platform on your phone or device

• sharing a song with a friend, following the terms of use on a digital platform

Categorize

Options (8)

traditional radio

FM

AM

Sirius XM

iTunes

Spotify

Pandora

YouTube

Categorize the platforms below as streaming services or radio services.

Streaming

Radio