Week 6 - Is Digital Rights Management the best way to save the music industry?

At present, illegal downloads are very accessible and many of today’s youth and others take advantage of this fact. The DRM have limited resources in keeping illegal downloads under wraps. This is not necessarily a bad situation however. Many illegal downloads are of very poor quality meaning that these downloads could act as a promotion for a specific song to be legally downloaded for better quality. The question remains…does the music industry need saving? It is already unbelievably successful so is it affected by illegal downloads. The big issue about Radiohead’s first number 1 would suggest that it does have an influence. I believe that since this incident in 2000, the influence of illegal downloads has decreased substantially and this incident simply occurred because illegal downloads were a new phenomenon. I believe that the DRM has got the prefect balance as illegal downloads are now part of music and if it was completely restricted it would needlessly take away a popular part of music!