Online music streaming services

Online music streaming services allow Internet users to listen to music. Some of these are mentioned below: Spotify, ITunes, Last FM and many others. Most of these sites allow the user to listen to the full music tracks rather than just a sample.

History of online music

The first site to attempt an online music streaming was Internet Underground Music Archive, however this was soon pulled by DMCA for legal reasons. Another one after this was The Store by Sony however this to did not seem to make it as after much research i could not seem to find very much on it and this could be because it did not make it.

There were only two sites of online music streaming after these that seemed to make it and that is ITunes and Napster. However Napster was closed down due to legal reasons but it could be said that it was the site that paved the way for more legal sites such as iTunes,Spotify, Last FM and Stereomood.

Even though iTunes was one of the first to allow users to listen to music for free legally. ITunes was introduced by Apple in January 2009. This made a fundamental change in the way people listened to music as they soon outsold Wal-Mart for music sales. It only allowed the user to listen to a sample of a track, but now there are various other sites that allow the user to listen to the Whole Track or even album. They are able to do this legally by advertising throughout the site. There are many sites taking of now the most popular one at the moment so far would be Spotify, with some radio ones such as last fm coming up second to it. Furthermore, some sites are providing different ways of searching for the music the user wishes to listen to. For example, Stereomood searches for tracks depending on mood.

Online music streaming sites seem to be the way forward for listening to music and downloading tracks, as they allow the user to sample new artists before buying their music, therefore allowing greater sales as buyers are no longer taking a risk listening to a new artist. It is also an easier way for people to store and listen to their music as they do not have to go through lots of albums to find the music they wish to listen to, they just have to select their music from the playlist they have created without much bother. Also, having the ability to create a playlist gives the user more control on what music they wish to listen to, enabling them to create their own albums in a sense.