The invention of the radio was a revolutionary breakthrough in the history of the music industry. It allowed artists to expand past their local scenes and gain a nationwide or even global following. A lot of people argued that the rise of the music video and MTV was a disruptive force that changed the way people were able to explore new music, but I see it a little different. To me, MTV is just another phase of the radio era.It is a supplement to radio, something that was used more for promotional and purposes than to revolutionize the industry as some claimed it to have done.Even though it is radically different from the radio, it was invented by and encompassed into the industry by becoming a substantial part of the marketing machine.The industry was centralized into conglomerations by MTV, even as musicians became staggeringly more numerous and diverse. And the radio thrived.The music industry expanded so rapidly that it became less about music and more about profit.Tom Morello of the band Rage Against the Machine puts it best:”Ive come to think of the music business as this layer of people – the managers,the attorneys, the record company executives – who are like the landlords of thisbuilding that is the music industry, he said.The bands just rent a room for a short time.These landlords all know one another and have business dealings with eachother, long before you put your band together and long after your band isdropped from the label.So many artists strive to sign with a major label that they may agree to contracts that they do not truly understand which can lead to the label taking a disproportional amount of the money earned.As Mos Def says in his song Mathematics, I got sixteen to thirty-two bars to rock it but only fifteen percent of profits ever see my pockets.And often minimum sale stipulations can leave a newly signed band out in the cold when their debut album falls flat on the charts.This is perhaps most commonly seen within the hip-hop genre. Countless rappers fall victim to predatory contracts that exploit their music and ultimately leave the artist with a small proportion of what he or she deserved. Something needed to change. Enter: the Internet.It is often argued that the Internet changed every aspect of our lives and affected every business and industry in some capacity. The music business is no exception.Its hard to believe that YouTube was only invented in 2005, bought out by Google a year later and rapidly evolved into the cultural and financial powerhouse that it is today.Think of a song, any song, and I can guarantee you that YouTube has more than one version of it uploaded and a dubstep remix to boot.If MTV was the evolution of the radio, then the Internet was the revolution that overthrew the radio and replaced it as the most important and influential medium for music.First, YouTube made most music available to listen to for free. Then something special happened. In 2006, Derek Vincent Smith (a.k.a. Pretty Lights) put out his entire first album to the Internet for free.On why he did this, Smith said, It was kind of a gamble at first but honestly its been a really good move because the fact that the music is good and people like it, combined with it being free accelerated word of mouth and those have been the two reasons why things have popped off so quickly for us.”Pretty Lights went from an unknown and unsuccessful DJ to one of the most popular touring electronic artists who owns his own label with 13 other artists signed to it. All of this was accomplished without Smith ever forcing fans to pay for his or any of his labels artists music.Shortly after Pretty Lights pioneered the free self-release, Radiohead decided to try an experiment of their own by releasing their seventh album In Rainbows in 2007 using a unique online distribution system where fans were allowed to pay whatever they wanted for their music.The rest of the world took notice, and within a couple of years it became a very normal practice to self-release music onto the Internet for free; the floodgates had opened, and things would never be the same.Music sharing was no longer taboo, partly because most of the free music was coming directly from the musicians themselves.The broad range of musical styles that had developed over the course of the last half-century fractured and exploded into a countless number of sub-genres and entirely new and unique styles.Everyone and their mother can be a musician now, making the rise of any individual to prominence all the more impressive.The new formula for success flies in the face of the dinosaurs holding the reigns of the traditional industry. Artists can sidestep the traditional recording and promotional processes previously handled by the record companies by recording, releasing and promoting their music all on their own through social media.The shift is especially profound in hip-hop, as all aspiring MCs need is a microphone, the skill set to record an album and the relentless use of social media to find a fan base.This is how the potty-mouth crew Odd Future achieved such quick, albeit fleeting success, and recently its how Pro Era has spear-headed the Beast Coast movement and started it from scratch to going on a nation-wide tour in just a year.Perhaps most notable is that a lot of the people in those two groups started making music when they were still teenagers – age is no longer as relevant when you can release music for free, and as far as finding a market on the internet, I would refer to the wise words of Immortal Technique and say that there is a market for everything.Where is the music business headed to next? That is still up in the air, but perhaps the answer can be summed up in one word: everywhere.