Changing Entertainment Distribution

There’s this ‘service’, I guess you could call it, called Pitchfork Advance. Basically, prior to releasing their album officially, bands can get Pitchfork (a music review site, centered around indie music) to stream it on a custom sub-section of their site. A lot of bands are doing it.

I recently heard this story about Tyler, The Creator’s new album leaking. When he found out it leaked, and the leak was apparently not very high-quality, he decided to stream his album in its entirety on SoundCloud at an acceptable quality.

And then of course there’s the loads of material available on sites like Hulu, Channel4, etc.

What is the internet doing to entertainment distribution? To the way we find and enjoy entertainment? Is it better for consumers of entertainment? Or worse? Is it better for producers of entertainment? Or worse? Or is it just different?