The Internet has obviously had an affect on all aspects of media. Some major areas where the internet has changed how the majority of people access media are the areas of music and news.
I can remember a time when you actually had to drive your car to a store to purchase a new cd, and if you wanted an old cd it would take multiple phone calls or trips to different stores to locate the cd you were looking for. Now we have many options that deliver music over our Internet connection from I tunes to Amazon. We have easy access to a wide catalogue of music spanning generations and genres. This trend has also helped to consolidate the industry, they no longer need vast distribution networks and some artists now only release their albums through online venues.
The second large area where internet has become a dominant player is news media. Cable and broadcast outlets all employee some form of web-site with up to date information on the current news. Some especially the cable outlets may have streaming video of their live news programming.
Copy right law has had to evolve at a fairly rapid pace to keep up with the internet, I can remember in high school being able to download songs for free from file sharing sites without much concern, but now if I was doing that I would really take a step back and say is this worth the RIAA coming after me? I believe artists and companies have a right to enforce their copy rights. I also agree that people are subject to the laws of the country in which they reside. Copy right laws are there to protect everyone not just super rich artists or recording industry executives. Some day one of us could have and idea and we would benefit from these same protections. While the constant flux of the internet has allowed easy and free access to copy right material I think in the near future companies and law enforcement will catch up with the trend and we will see a marked decrease in the availability of pirate material.
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