Access, Digital

Access to music that is not traditional or to folk music—whether that access is sought by audiences, performers, or those working in the music or related industries—has long been regulated to a greater or lesser extent by those who control its performance, publication, or production. However, in the digital age, music, in various forms such as sheet music, audio recordings, and video recordings, can exist as digital files, which may in turn be transmitted easily and inexpensively over electronic networks. This has led to the unauthorized sharing of copyrighted material—giving users “free” access to music—but has also produced new ways to access music provided by digital streaming services such as Spotify for low or no cost to the user. Some musicians, composers, and publishers make examples of their work freely available in the hope that purchases will be made as a result.

What is meant by “the digital age?” From a medium theory perspective, communication media have evolved over the past few thousand years of human and technological development from oral, via scribal, to print, and then to electronic media. Though the electronic age can be considered to date back to the turn of the 20th century with the adoption of the telegraph and telephone, the digital age from the late 20th century represents a significant shift and should be categorized separately from the earlier age of analog electronic technology. Compared with analog media such as vinyl records, which are not easily copied without changing their physical nature or quality, digital media such as MP3 files (because they are made up of pieces of information reducible to ones and zeros) can be copied indefinitely with no loss of quality. Furthermore, because these electronic files are not physical objects as such, they can be stored electronically on multiple devices that may be accessed in different ways, and not necessarily just by their “owner.” The current digital age has been made possible, particularly from the 1990s onward, by the development of computing power, storage capacity, and electronic networks such as the Internet, all of which have had a profound effect on the accessibility of music.