Abstract

This article analyses the different steps which characterized the difficult relationship between music and new technology and illustrates the most important aspects of the crisis of the record industry, identifying some possible outcomes. The digital revolution, together with the enormous development of Internet and the introduction of MP3, has deeply changed the basic features of the music market and has forced its actors to reinvent their roles and to start a quick transformation of the productive system and of distribution and marketing strategies. The impact of new technologis will deeply change also the way in which music is used, with current users adapting themselves to new distribution systems and with the rebirth of collective consumption, through the new impulse given to live music.