Digital Encoding and Music Sharing :: Internet

Digital Encoding and Music Sharing Computers have revolutionized the world of music. Through the Internet, users can get any type of music at little to no cost. They practically eliminate the need to purchase new CD’s. This new concept is made possible through the process of digital encoding. The Internet is only a tool allow the freedom of sharing music. Mp3’s are the most popular form of encoded digital music and are the most readily available for the Internet. Most Mp3 players are played on winamp, which is available to the public. There has also been a great amount of controversy within the free sharing of Mp3’s. Mp3’s stands for Mpeg layer-3 type format media file. Mp3’s are digitally compressed songs form CD’s. The average track on a CD is proximally 50 megabytes in size. Through the process of digital compression modern software can minimize the amount of space for the same CD track to one-tenth the size, making the average Mp3 file 5 megs, losing only minimal amount of quality. The small amount of space that the Mp3 take up on the hard drive is much less than copying a .wav file from a CD. The average modem can transfer 5 Megs of information in about 10 min. It would take hours to transfer a .wav file of the same music quality. This is what makes mp3’s so popular for Internet and computer users. The average CD on the market today costs about 20 dollars. Through the uses of the Internet and Mp3 sharing communities such as Napster, Scour net, File quest, and Imesh, users can build a music library for a fraction of the cost of purchasing normal CD’s from a music store. Napster is one of the front-runners in Mp3 sharing. It works by networking your computer to every other computer that is logged onto Napster. Users can search for any song and download any song that is on any computer that is log onto the network. This program is so simple that a 10 year old can uses it. The simplicity of the program made Napster a multimillion-user program within months of it’s beginning. Napster has also made some real powerful enemies by allowing users to trade music. The music industry survives mainly on the sales of CD’s. Napster enables one person to purchase the CD, and through the use of their computer, they give the music to millions of different users.