Within the past five or ten years, the popularity of compact discs has decreased. With the rise of Napster in the early 2000's and iTunes today, music is now being obtained more digitally. This is environmentally friendly, since no packaging and shipping is needed. But musicians are actually losing green...a different kind of green, that is. It is now possible for consumers to buy a single song because of digital websites and programs. If a person does not like a certain song, they do not have to buy the full length album. Also, file sharing is a new way for music lovers to easily distribute their favorite tunes over the Internet illegally. These two situations are causing record sales to decline.
I am guilty of buying single songs on iTunes, rather than full-length albums. However, if the CD is by an artist I love, I will by it. But rather than the ones in the hard plastic case, I have started purchasing CDs in "digipacks," which the author of this article, Jaine Kaif, explains are "made of cardboard paper but [have] a foam/plastic tray." Once all record companies package their artists' CDs in digipacks, I believe people won't be as hesitant about buying CDs as they do now.
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