World Music Through Downloading

Downloading may be killing the rock star, but it’s doing great things for world music in the US. “Before the digital revolution, the cross-border import of indigenous music was inefficient, cost-prohibitive and logistically challenging. The market for some content was too small for major labels to justify importing it through the usual channels, so the music generally could be found only in specialty stores — which are not always opposed to selling pirated material. But legitimate online music services are beginning to feature larger selections of world music.”