For Millennia, The Circulation Of Music In Human Societies Has Been GMAT Reading Comprehension

Reading Passage Question

This passage is excerpted from Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture, by David Bollier (Wiley):

For millennia, the circulation of music in human societies has been as free as the circulation of air and water; it just comes naturally. Indeed, one of the ways that a society constitutes itself as a society is by freely sharing its words, music, and art. Only in the past century or so has music been placed in a tight envelope of property rights and strictly monitored for unauthorized flows. In the past decade, the proliferation of personal computers, Internet access, and digital technologies has fueled two conflicting forces: the democratization of creativity and the demand for stronger copyright protections.

While the public continues to have nominal fair use rights to copyrighted music, in practice the legal and technological controls over music have grown tighter. At the same time, creators at the fringes of mass culture, especially some hip-hop and remix artists, remain contemptuous of such controls and routinely appropriate whatever sounds they want to create interesting music.

Copyright protection is a critically important tool for artists in earning a livelihood from their creativity. But as many singers, composers, and musicians have discovered, the benefits of copyright law in the contemporary marketplace tend to accrue to the recording industry, not to the struggling garage band. As alternative distribution and marketing outlets have arisen, the recording industry has sought to ban, delay, or control as many of them as possible. After all, technological innovations that provide faster, cheaper distribution of music are likely to disrupt the industry’s fixed investments and entrenched ways of doing business. New technologies allow newcomers to enter the market and compete, sometimes on superior terms. New technologies enable new types of audiences to emerge that may or may not be compatible with existing marketing strategies.

No wonder the recording industry has scrambled to develop new technological locks and broader copyright protections; they strengthen its control of music distribution. If metering devices could turn barroom singalongs into a market, the music industry would likely declare this form of unauthorized musical performance to be copyright infringement.

“For millennia, the circulation of music in human societies has been”- is a GMAT reading comprehension exercise. Candidates need to be highly proficient in GMAT reading comprehension. There are five comprehension questions in this GMAT reading comprehension section. The purpose of the GMAT Reading Comprehension questions is to evaluate candidates' comprehension, analysis, and application skills. Candidates who are actively preparing can benefit from GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solutions and Explanation

1. Which of the following most accurately states the main idea of the passage?

(A) Only with the development of technology in the past century has music begun to freely circulate in society.
(B) The recording industry is trying to develop an ever-tighter hold on the distribution of music, which used to circulate freely.
(C) Copyright protection is an important tool for composers and musicians who earn their living from their music.
(D) Technology allows new distribution methods that threaten to undermine the marketing strategies of music companies.
(E) If music is no longer allowed to flow freely through the society, then the identity of the society itself will be lost.

2. Given the author’s overall opinion of increased copyright protections, what is his attitude toward “hip-hop and remix artists” mentioned in Paragraph 2?

(A) wonder that they aren’t sued more for their theft of copyright protected music
(B) disappointment that they don’t understand the damage they are doing to society
(C) envy of their extravagant lifestyle and increasing popularity
(D) approval of their continued borrowing of music despite tighter copyright controls
(E) shock at their blatant sampling of the music of other artists

3. According to the passage, new technology has resulted (or will result) in each of the following except

(A) new locks on music distribution
(B) newcomers’ competing in the music market
(C) better music
(D) democratization of creativity
(E) faster, cheaper distribution of music

4. The author of the passage would likely agree most with which of the following statements?

(A) Small-time musicians do not benefit from strict copyright protections in the same manner as record companies do.
(B) Copyright protections are designed to let music artists keep more of the money they earn through their talent.
(C) Recording companies are largely undeserving of their greedy reputations.
(D) Recording companies embrace new technologies because they help encourage the spread of music.
(E) Copyright protections encourage creativity among musicians because the artists must find new ways to share their music with the masses.

5. The final sentence of the passage seems to imply what about the executives of the record industry?

(A) They have found ways to make money from any performance of any music at any time.
(B) They are boldly leading the music industry into a new technological era of vastly increased profits.
(C) They want their music to be performed as often as possible by the maximum number of people to create greater exposure for artists.
(D) They don’t actually like music or know anything about music and are attempting to limit the society’s exposure to music.
(E) No performance of music anywhere is safe from their attempts to control the distribution of all music.

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