A Brief History of Music Online

Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 8:44 pm

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1981 MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) was invented

1991 – The MP3 is invented by by the German research firm Fraunhofer Institute

1992 Earliest Usenet music discussion groups began. Some of these can still be found. Here is one such site where some discussions have been archived: http://imperium.lenin.ru/~verbit/Music/Music-Usenet.html

1993 I began writing music reviews for Online Digital Music Review (one of the first online music review ezines). This service was created by Alan Bechtold, an online pioneer. I remember having to log onto his bbs and upload my music reviews. His physical address was prominent on the bulletin board and I still remember my thinking I was uploading my reviews to Kansas.

1993 The Internet Underground Music Archive – created to help unsigned bands promote their music. Originally found on Usenet groups.

1995 The Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act was signed into law. For the first time, sound recording copyright owners would be given performance rights for music that is transmitted digitally.

1995 Real Player is released by Progressive Networks (later to become RealNetworks)

1996 two songs from U2′s album “Pop” were posted on websites in several countries for free downloading before the album had even been released.

1997 The music licensing agency Broadcast Music Inc., or BMI, said Wednesday it has developed a “Web robot” to monitor transmission and sales of music on the Internet, a possible precursor to messy copyright battles.

1998 First portable MP3 player
is made and marketed by Diamond Multimedia,. The RIO PMP 3000. (Hey, I owned a RIO and loved it!!!)

1999 Live365 is launched in July.

1999 Napster is launched in June

1999 On December 7th, a day that will live in online music infamy, the RIAA filed a lawsuit against Napster.

2000 Sirus launches first music satellite into space.

2000 KaZaA is launched.

2001 My first personal experience with a P2P network. This one is called eBlvd.com.

2001 Napster shuts down.

2001 Apple debuts the iPod and iTunes. Free Download: Single of the Week. Only on iTunes

2002 Apple announces a Windows compatible version of the iPod

2003 Last.fm begins its service

2004 Mar 25 – More than 90% of people downloading music from the internet are doing so illegally, the music industry claimed today as it warned of dire legal consequences for anyone caught pirating tracks from the web

2005 Pandora is launched in its current form.

2005 MTV announces launch of subscription service Urge

2006 Microsoft debuts Zune music device.

2007 Amazon launches its MP3 store

2007 Oct 6 – In the first US trial to challenge the illegal downloading of music on the internet, a single mother from Minnesota, Jammie Thomas, has been ordered to pay $220,000 for sharing 24 songs online.

2007 Grooveshark launches privately as a paid music service

2008 Napster is bought by Best Buy

2009 Pandora doubled to 40 million users.

2009 Everyone had a Twitter account this year, with some artists using it better than others. Security scares were a problem, though, with Britney Spears
and Kanye West suffering high-profile hacks.

2009 I discovered grooveshark.com with a suggestion from @unmarketing on Twitter. I am now a very happy online music listener.

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