Research Proposal: Internet, Digital Downloading, and Music Industry

This research proposal examines the impact of the internet and digital downloading on the global music industry. It begins by outlining the background, aims, and objectives of the study, emphasizing the transformative effects of technology on music consumption and distribution. The proposal reviews the evolution of the music industry, from physical formats to digital platforms, and discusses the various aspects of internet and digital downloading, including both the advantages and disadvantages. The proposed research methodology employs an interpretivism philosophy and an inductive approach, utilizing qualitative research methods, specifically interviews, to gather primary data. The study aims to understand the impact of digital downloading on revenue, copyright, and the overall business model of the music industry. The proposal also outlines the data collection methods, emphasizing the use of interviews to gain insights into the perceptions and behaviors related to music consumption and copyright infringement. The research seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and opportunities presented by digital technologies in the music industry.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Research Proposal on “How has the music industry been affected by the internet and digital
downloading?”
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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1.0 Introduction, Aims and Objectives
1.1 Background of the study
The rise and the growth of internet and technology in the past few decades have changed
the way of life of people. Every phase and everything in the lives of the people has changed
forever after the internet and advanced technology had captured the world. Music industry is no
exception. Widespread reach of the internet and the technology of digital downloading had cast a
significantly huge impact on the contemporary music industry (Trabucchi et al. 2017).
According to the experts, there is both positive and negative impact of the internet and advanced
digital technology on the music industry. Illegal downloading of music is one of the biggest
downside effects of the internet and digital downloading that has been affecting the music
industry (Bacache-Beauvallet, Bourreau and Moreau 2015). As the technology is becoming more
advanced overtime, the incidence of illegal music downloading is increasing too.
Internet has made music download possible, legally as well as illegally. Internet, coupled
with digital downloading technology, has become a big threat to the survival of the music
industry. The illegal music download was possible by the internet due to the technology or
software allowing the peer-to-peer files transfer between several internet users at the same time
(Sinclair and Green 2016). This practice has always been violating the copyright rules. Music is
a creative art, which is copyrighted to protect the intellectual property and it is not allowed to be
shared in this way. However, there is no proven and effective way to stop this practice
altogether. This has affected the business of the music industry in a negative manner.
Belleflamme and Peitz (2014) say that the creation of music has never stopped, but the
companies that publish those copyrighted music through CDs and DVDs, lose out a big amount
of revenue from the sales due to the digital downloading and this has led to a fall in the profit of

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those companies, making it difficult for them to sustain. However, digital downloading also has a
positive impact on the music industry as it spreads the music to far wide corners of the world
(Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf 2016).
1.2 Aim and objectives
1.2.1 Research aim
Aim of this research paper is to evaluate the impact of internet and digital downloading on the
music industry of the world.
1.2.2 Research objectives
The objectives of this research paper are:
 To examine the technological revolution in the music industry
 To explore the impact of technology of digital downloading and internet on the global
music industry
2.0 Literature review
2.1 Evolution of the music industry
Music has been one of the most popular arts since the beginning of history. It plays a
major role in the different cultures of mankind cross the world. In the past 150 years, music of all
types has gone through a huge revolution. The technological revolution has affected the music
industry too like the all other industries. Music has transformed from just a sound note to digital
coding with the help of technology (Lebler and Weston 2015). From phonograph to mp3 files,
music has travelled a big journey within a very short span of time. The technologies that
contributed in the digital transformation of the music are phonograph, radio, television, electric

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instruments, synthesizers, cassettes and CDs, DVDs, MP3 or peer-to-peer trading, iPod and
streaming (Gebesmair 2017). The music industry depends on the creation and publishing of
music, creating a brand for the musicians and a source of earning revenue.
The technological revolution has changed the facet of the music industry. Before the
technological advancement, music used to be confined to particular regions. When people started
to record the music in the form of phonograph record, it started to spread across the world and
the music industry was created. Radio and television also helped in globalization of music (Frith
2016). The musicians started to record their music under the recording companies and selling
those records would yield revenue to both the musician and the recording companies. With the
advancement of technologies, the music industry grew into a magnificent business and
established strict copyright rules. Not only the music creating and recording techniques and
software have changed, but the type of business has changed too. The digitalization of music has
opened new channels for earning revenue (Thompson 2017). At the same time, it also faces
many risks of the piracy and fall in business revenue, which is creating big issues to the music
industry.
2.2 Different aspects of internet and digital downloading
Discovery of internet is one of the biggest successes of the modern world. Due to the
internet, people’s way of life has changed. Music industry is no exception. As the technologies
have changed the nature of music files and introduced music sharing options, such as, digital
downloading and streaming, people find it convenient to listen to the music online or download it

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rather than buying a CD. New technologies have both advantages and disadvantages (Taylor
2014).
Internet has encouraged many more artists and music companies to produce songs and
sell it online for streaming in iTunes or Youtube to make fast money. The biggest advantage of
this trend is that the artists can reach a far bigger audience across the globe, which brings
popularity to them and make them international stars (Sparrow 2017). Digital downloading has
enabled the users to download the single track that they like within an album.
It has some disadvantages too. Digital downloading has often brought in viruses to the
system, which is harmful. The most challenging situation is the illegal downloads of music,
which brings losses to the music companies and the artists by depreciating the values.
Technology has made it easier to replicate the music files and share them among the peers. There
has been no fruitful way to stop the illegal downloads. It violates the copyrights also. Hence, it
affects the revenue of the artists and the music companies and there is also no way to measure
the actual amount of business generated from this practice (Reardon et al. 2017). Apart from
that, in the online market, there is lack of governing bodies for monitoring the businesses. It is
easier to enter the market for the music companies or any single artist, but at the same time, lack
of regulations affects the protection of intellectual property (Zhang 2016). Hence, internet and
digital downloading have thrown some challenges to the music industry.

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3.0 Proposed methods of research
3.1 Philosophical approach/paradigm
Research philosophy or paradigm is the set of assumptions or belief about the way the
information or data on the research topic will be collected, analyzed and explained (Saunders et
al. 2015). There are many different ways to conduct a research study. Research philosophy
defines the particular way that the researcher would adopt for the research. There are four major
types of research paradigm, namely, positivism, interpretivism, pragmatism and realism, among
which the researcher chooses one according to the nature of the study and source of information
(Edson, Henning and Sankaran 2016).
In this research study, the researcher will choose the interpretivism philosophy. This
philosophy is based on the observation and interpretation skills of the researcher to explain the
elements of research. In the study of social science, many elements of human behavior or interest
cannot be established by using scientific calculation, and in that case, interpretivism paradigm is
applied, which allows the researcher to study and interpret the human behavior (Ryan 2018).
Regarding the impact of internet and digital downloading on the music industry, the researcher
needs to interpret the observation regarding people’s attitude towards awareness about the
copyrights on music and violation of the rules by indulging into the illegal downloading of
music. This behavior affects the music industry in any ways which will be addressed by the
researcher.
The researcher will adopt the qualitative research method with the aim of interpreting the
human behavior towards violating the IPR rules by applying qualitative analysis process.

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3.2 Research logic
There are three types of research approaches, namely, inductive, deductive and abductive.
Under inductive approach, the researcher solves the puzzle or answers the research question and
generates a new theory from the findings, that is, inferences are drawn from the observations and
their analysis, while in the deductive approach, the researcher tests the research hypothesis on the
basis of already established theories (Stephens, Dunn and Hayes 2017), that is, inferences are
drawn from the literature and established theories to reach to the conclusion. Abductive approach
of research involves the decision on drawing the most probable inference that can generate from
a particular set of observations (Walton 2014). Since, there can be infinite number of probable
explanations for the research phenomenon, the abductive logic helps in deciding the closest or
most possible explanation.
The researcher will follow the inductive approach of research. In this research, inductive
approach will be followed as the researcher aims to find out the impact of human behavior from
a new perspective to throw a light on the effect of technology on music industry (Ary et al.
2018). There is no established theory that can help in drawing the inferences about the research
topic, as required in the deductive approach and there is also no need to choose one from many
possible explanations of the impact of internet and digital downloading on the music industry, as
needed in abductive reasoning. Hence, inductive approach of research is most suitable in this
case.
3.3 Research method
Research strategy refers to the plan of the researcher on how to move ahead and which
steps to be followed to get the desired outcome of the research paper. There are two major types
of research strategies or methods, namely, qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research

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method is majorly based on exploratory research. It helps in analyzing the underlying opinions,
reasons and motivations of people. This method is used to provide insights into the research
problem or to help in developing hypotheses for the potential research. Usually small sample size
is taken and interview method or focus group method is applied for data collection under this
process (Brannen 2017). On the other hand, quantitative research deals with numerical data and
application of statistical calculation tools to get the result. The opinions, attitudes, behavior are
quantified for the purpose of data calculation. Data is usually collected from large samples,
majorly through surveys, online polls etc. It mainly follows the explanatory research approach,
where the research phenomenon is explained on the basis of established theories (Hussein 2015).
As the researcher is following the interpretivism philosophy, with inductive approach, the
qualitative method of research is most suitable. According to Davies and Hughes (2014), the
attitude or behavior of the people and their perception about the research topic can be best
understood by applying qualitative method.
3.4 Data collection methods
3.4.1 Method for gaining access to sites, data and or informants
Primary data will be collected for this research. The researcher will be adopting the
interview method to collect the primary data about the research topic. As exploratory and
qualitative method of research will be undertaken, the interview method of data collection would
be most suitable, as it is necessary to understand the research problem from the observant’s point
of view for unfolding the meaning of their experiences and uncovering it before conducting
scientific knowledge (Alshenqeeti 2014). Its major strength is to evaluate the perceptions of
people with intellectual understanding and the major weakness is that it does not help in

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scientific analysis to prove a trend or find a pattern in the data (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault
2015).
Interview questions are generally open-ended. The potential problem that can arise in this
method is the larger amount of time taken and the answers can be vastly different and difficult to
interpret due to their wide horizon. This can be handled if structured interview method is used
where there will be closed set of questions for all the participants, which will be easier to
interpret (Levashina et al. 2014). Hence, interview questions will be the best method to bring out
the idea on people’s attitude towards illegal downloading of music and its effect of the music
industry.
3.4.2 Sampling
The researcher aims to conduct the interview on 5 to 7 participants, as taking large
samples is not feasible. It will not only take much time to conduct, but will also be difficult to
interpret the answers, which will make the data robust and complex (Robinson 2014). Hence,
small sample size will be taken by the researcher by applying purposive sampling method under
non-probability sampling technique. This method is chosen on the basis of the characteristics of
the population and the objective of the research (Palinkas et al. 2015). In this research, the
interviewees will be chosen based on their knowledge about the digital downloading and its
effect on the music industry.
3.5 Data analysis
Structured interview questions will be helpful for analyzing the responses in an easier
way. Narrative analysis, under the qualitative analysis process, will be adopted. In this process,
each response is analyzed to get the meanings and insights of the participants, compare and

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contrast the different answers for interpreting the underlying motivations, reasons and opinions,
and create a new story connecting the responses in an insightful way (Silverman 2015). Narrative
analysis will also be suitable for inductive approach of research, where the researcher aims to
find out a new perspective on the issue of the research and generate a new theory based on the
interpretation of the data. In this research, small sample size and closed set of questions will help
the researcher to analyze the interview responses in an easier manner by narrowing down the
observations and interpreting them to find a new inference to meet the research aim and
objectives (Cortazzi 2014).
3.6 Anticipated Challenges and Limitations
The anticipated challenges for this research may include the lack of willingness of people
to participate in the interview. They might not feel interested or motivated to participate in the
interview process. To overcome this challenge, the researcher may want to make the questions
interesting and also less time consuming. While convincing the participants, he must mention
that the questions will take very less time to answer, so that they do not feel like wasting their
time.
Limitation
The research only focuses on the qualitative study. Lack of scope of quantitative study is
a limitation for this research, as the study should also take into account the trends in the digital
downloading of music and the impact on the music industry. This would have helped the
researcher to validate the findings of the qualitative data analysis with the support of scientific
analysis of the trend data, which would make the conclusions of the paper more convincing.

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3.7 Ethical and Professional Issues
Like any other research studies, this paper also has some ethical and professional issues.
Since, the researcher will be collecting primary data through face-to-face interview process, the
privacy of the participants and confidentiality of the data are very important to maintain the
ethical issues of the research. During the interview process, the researcher will agree to the
conditions that the data will only be used for educational research purposes and the personal
information of the respondents will be strictly confidential. The names of the participants and
their organizations and their job descriptions will remain off the record. The researcher must
ensure that none of participants gets harmed in anyway due to the participation in the research
studies. An agreement will be signed by the researcher and the participants on these matters to
maintain deal with the ethical and professional issues in the research.
4.0 Research Timetable
Month
Task 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Making a strategy
Making a framework
Literature review
Primary data collection
Conducting interview
Data analysis
Presenting the findings and
discussion
Providing the conclusion
Thesis submission
Table 1: Timetable for the research
(Source: Author)

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References
Alshenqeeti, H., 2014. Interviewing as a data collection method: A critical review. English
Linguistics Research, 3(1), p.39.
Ary, D., Jacobs, L.C., Irvine, C.K.S. and Walker, D., 2018. Introduction to research in
education. Cengage Learning.
Bacache-Beauvallet, M., Bourreau, M. and Moreau, F., 2015. Piracy and creation: The case of
the music industry. European Journal of Law and Economics, 39(2), pp.245-262.
Belleflamme, P. and Peitz, M., 2014. Digital piracy (pp. 1-8). Springer New York.
Brannen, J. ed., 2017. Mixing methods: Qualitative and quantitative research. Routledge.
Cortazzi, M., 2014. Narrative analysis (Vol. 12). Routledge.
Davies, M.B. and Hughes, N., 2014. Doing a successful research project: Using qualitative or
quantitative methods. Palgrave Macmillan.
Edson, M.C., Henning, P.B. and Sankaran, S. eds., 2016. A guide to systems research:
Philosophy, processes and practice (Vol. 10). Springer.
Frith, S., 2016. Writing the history of popular music. In Stereo: Comparative Perspectives on the
Sociological Study of Popular Music in France and Britain (pp. 27-38). Routledge.
Gebesmair, A., 2017. Global repertoires: popular music within and beyond the transnational
music industry. Routledge.