Ever since Napster began the downloading scene, Americans – NIU students – have been illegally downloading most of their music. But legal downloading has made a major dent in the marketplace, as iTunes overtook Wal-Mart earlier this month as the No. 1 seller of music in the country.

Eric Swanson, a computer science and business administration major, said that most NIU students are downloading music, just not from iTunes.

“I don’t think anyone really pays for it,” he said. “I think the people who pay for it are afraid of being caught by the RIAA (Record Industry Association of America).”

But Robert Riggle, assistant professor of marketing, thinks that most students are getting their tunes the legal way.

“They’re probably getting it from iTunes,” he said. “I would assume from seeing the number of iPods.”

David Gunkel, associate professor of communication, agrees with Riggle.

“The majority of them are downloading it legally,” he said. “I am surprised that there is a good percentage.”

CD sales, in general, continue to decline. According to Nielsen SoundScan, an information system that tracks the sales of music, album sales are down 11 percent from this time last year, while digital music sales are up 29 percent.

Riggle said the record industry may have brought this upon itself with the way it prosecuted illegal file sharers, some of whom were college students who were unable to pay the hefty fines.

“They’ve done a bad job from a public relations standpoint,” he said. “They could have handled the situation tactfully. It seems like they went after these people, guns blazing.”

Riggle praised iTunes’ entire business strategy.

“They really took hold of the pioneer advantage,” he said. “They seemed to be really the first major player to find a legal outlet for [downloading] music. Those companies that are first to market a product have a consistent competitive advantage.”

Diminished quality?

Some people think there is less sound quality because MP3s are taking over the market instead of CDs.

“Many are concerned that an entire generation is implicitly training themselves to accept an inferior audio presentation […] as being the standard,” said James Phelps, associate professor of music. “MP3 is a lossy compression format. Lossy means you lose data in the process, which often means you lose accuracy in the end product.”

Phelps is not the only one who thinks this way. Geoffrey Decker, instructor of computer science, said he notices a definite audible difference between the two formats.

“I much prefer the sounds of CDs over MP3s,” he said. “I don’t think MP3s will ever take over the quality of CDs.”

There are many reasons why people choose to download tracks instead of going to the store to buy a CD, Gunkel said.

“One is just convenience,” he said. “It’s easier to download the music you want. You can get your music immediately. The availability of a really wide selection: Wal-Mart has only so much, iTunes [doesn’t have] that limitation. You can get a lot of lesser-known music.”

Decker believes today’s culture wants quantity of music over the quality of the individual tracks.

Top 10 U.S. Music Retailers: January 2008:

Apple – 19%

Wal-Mart – 15%

Best Buy – 13%

Amazon – 6%

Target – 6%

FYE/Coconuts – 3%

Borders – 3%

Barnes & Noble – 2%

Circuit City – 2%

Rhapsody – 1%

Other – 28%