IELTS Essay # 42 - Nowadays music and newspapers are available online. What are the advantages and disadvantages of such services? Give your own opinion followed by relevant examples.

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Essay # 42

Nowadays music and newspapers are available online. What are the advantages and disadvantages of such services? Give your own opinion followed by relevant examples.

Accelerated technological development has enabled the physical newspaper’s transformation into e-newspapers. In the post internet era, the music market has also flourished online. For both these phenomenon, certain merits and demerits have been observed, and this essay shall discuss them further in detail.

The internet enables fast transmission of digital data, and is used by almost everyone nowadays. Since the time many media companies decided to share their work online, there has been a rampant demand of news articles and music albums and songs that people want to download from the internet. Scores of sites now offer music, while hundreds of others summarise news and this reaches more consumers than ever online. Moreover, since it’s free, it’s all the more beneficial for the people. However the media businesses have been said to be fallen on hard times. The problem seems to be that the internet has expanded the audience for media, but has also destroyed the market for it.

The media houses have been observed of not collecting enough of the revenue being generated by their work. Over the past decade, much of the value created by music and newspapers has benefited other companies – pirates and respected technology firms alike. Part of the problem is widespread piracy - unauthorised distribution that doesn't benefit creators or the companies that invest in them. This dynamic doesn't only hurt media conglomerates – it creates problems for independent artists and companies of every size, big and small. This is the biggest disadvantage regarding this issue as it defeats the core purpose of developing creative content.

To conclude, I’d say one of the most exciting aspects of the internet is to make information free for all. But when it starts hindering the growth of newspaper and music industries, and leads to their decline, I feel strong law enforcements should be executed.

(305 words)