The Music Industry
1. Consumption
Music is purchased and listened to every single day. This is music consumption, the people buy and listen.
Definition:
Music consumption is consumers (the public / people) buying physical copies of an album (a CD), downloading music online, buying concert tickets in order to see music live or any related products.
Further:
Magaudda (2011: 17) writes that ‘during the last ten years the music market has undergone a
period of deep transition as a direct consequence of the flourishing of digital music and the
development of Internet based services such as mp3, peer-to-peer networks and online music
stores’.
Music consumption has changed over the years because of the changing world that we live in. Music is not only purchased and available, but is now able to be streamed through subscription services, such as Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal.
Some things important to look at in terms of music consumption, are these statistics from the beginning of 2015:
*From British Phonographic Industry*
- 4% increase in Album Equivalent Sales (AES) for year to date (Jan – Jun 2015)
- Major album releases get the year off to a strong start, with more to follow in Q3/Q4
- Streams up 80% – likely to be boosted further by Apple Music’s entry into the market
- Rate of decline in physical sales slows as CDs show resilience and vinyl enjoys 20-year high
- Compilations sales rise for seventh consecutive month, up 5% in 2015
CASE STUDY
2. Production
Music is created by people across the world.
Definition:
Production is the process of creating, recording, and materializing music.
Further:
Originally, music production and recording equipment was very expensive. It wasn't for everyone. Now, you or I can pick up our smartphones, open the application store and quickly download an app (maybe even for free) that we can create high quality music on. Damon Albarn produced an entire album on an iOS (yes, the software on an iPhone) device.
Recordings are created by recording artists, often with the assistance of record producers and audio engineers. They were traditionally made in recording studios (who are paid a daily or hourly rate) in a recording session.
In the present day, advances in recording technology have allowed many producers and artists to create "home studios", bypassing the traditional role of the recording studio. The record producer oversees all aspects of the recording, making many of the logistic, financial and artistic decisions in cooperation with the artist.
Audio engineers (including recording, mixing and mastering engineers) are responsible for the audio quality of the recording.
A recording session may also require the services of an arranger, studio musicians, session musicians, vocal coaches, or even ghostwriter to help with the lyrics.
Major Label Artists?
Major label artists would use a recording studio, where they can go and record their music very professionally. This costs a lot, but because they are under a major label, this is what they use in order to create the highest quality music for the public.
Independent Artists?
Independent artists may also use a recording studio, but it is becoming increasingly popular for independent artists to create their own studio at home. This can be done with just a computer, some software, and a microphone. Applications are increasingly available that musical instruments aren't even necessary - digital versions of them are included in the applications.
CASE STUDY (Linked / Embedded):
Focused Ethnography as Research Method: A Case Study of Techno Music Producers in Home-Recording Studios
Jan Michael Kühn
Abstract
Translator's Introduction: Jan-Michael Kühn's essay introduces the reader to Hubert Knoblauch's focused ethnography [fokussierte Ethnographie] as an ethnographic fieldwork method. More than a decade after Knoblauch's first publications on this method, there are precious few guides to focused ethnography in the English language, save one (Knoblauch 2005). At any rate, there are certainly no introductions to this methodology that also use EDM scenes as a case study. Kühn's article was originally published in German in Soziologie Magazin, a student-run journal published from Martin Luther University in Halle (Saale) but operated by an editorial network that spans Germany. As a result, Kühn orients his writing towards an audience of junior researchers, post-docs and graduate students, highlighting the ways in which focused ethnography suits the circumstances of early research careers, where one may have difficulty securing long-term research stays for fieldwork of broader scope. In particular, he notes that Knoblauch's methods require a very narrow scope for the project (i.e., a "field sector" rather than the whole field), a reliance on the researcher's previous knowledge of the field, and short bursts of intense ethnographic activity in order to create work that is tightly focused but still rigorous and generative of fresh knowledge and new concepts.
KEYWORDS: qualitative methods; cultural production; music production; home-recording; technoculture
Keywords
qualitative methods; cultural production; music production; home-recording; technoculture
3. Distribution
In order for people to actually acquire and listen to music, the music must be available, by firstly being distributed - so that the public can access / purchase it.
Definition:
Distribution is actually distributing the music. Meaning its promotion, getting the music on sale in stores, on to the radio, and online to be streamed or downloaded.
Further:
Music distribution is definitely changing. Digital distribution is on the rise, and it has been for a few years now.
From Wikipedia: "The music industry has undergone drastic changes since the advent of widespread digital distribution of music via the Internet, which includes both illegal file sharing of songs and legal music purchases. A conspicuous indicator of this is total music sales: since 2000, sales of recorded music have dropped off substantially while live music has increased in importance. The largest music retailer in the world is now digital: Apple Inc.'s online iTunes Store"
The largest music retailer in the world doesn't own one CD, let alone one store. That shows how times have changed, how music distribution has changed.
Major Label Artists?
Major label artists have their music distributed by / through their label.
Independent Artists?
Independent artists can distribute their music quite easily now, through releasing it digitally. An artist can release their music for free on sites such as Soundcloud, YouTube or AudioClouds. Listeners are able to hear an independent artist's music without the need for said artist to have a label.
4. Marketing
In basic terms... marketing is either 'forced' or 'allowed'.
The music industry has undergone extreme changes over the past few years, many of which have opened the doors for developing bands and artists. Gone are the days where the only option for getting fans to hear your music relied upon support from a limited number of "gatekeepers."
Music is able to be distributed as described, it doesn't take a lot of exposure to sell music now.
There are two types of marketing:
-Push marketing
-Pull marketing
Push marketing is actually pushing the music out. Promoting it with advertisements on television, in magazines etc. This is from institutions to audiences, with no way for audiences to interact.
Pull marketing is allowing the music to be pulled. Audiences can receive music on their own terms, such as streaming a song from Soundcloud or a video from YouTube.
5. Sales
Here we have 40 years of album sales in two charts. Handy and interesting.
Album sales definition (courtesy of KanyeToThe):
From a user; "RIAA certification is based on how many albums are shipped.
But album sales are based on how many are actually downloaded/physical copies bought from stores"
Further:
From November 2014,
"Billboard's influential music chart is about to step into the 21st century as the company announced it will soon include metrics from on-demand Internet streaming services like Apple's Beats Music to its Billboard 200 album rankings. "
Starting next month, (meaning December 2014) the Billboard 200 chart will incorporate on-demand streaming data and digital track sales provided by Nielsen Entertainment, a major step toward validating the impact of popular streaming platforms.
Billboard considers the updated system to be the biggest shift in methodology since it began tapping Nielsen's SoundScan for absolute sales in 1991. With SoundScan, charts are based on point-of-sale data, not easily manipulated surveys of record sales, reports The New York Times.
CASE STUDY
6. Piracy
Definition:
Music Piracy is the large-scale, unauthorised duplication of recorded music with the intent to defraud the copyright holder of his/her royalties; this includes the composers, lyricists and performing artists.
Music Artists' opinions on Piracy
"Download is the same as I did: I used to tape-record the songs, the successes that I liked on the radio. I do not care. I hate seeing all these rock stars complaining. At least they are downloading your music idiot, and they are paying attention to you. Do you know? You should appreciate that. What are you complaining? You have 5 huge houses, so just shut up." Noel Gallagher
"A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators — in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us." Bono
The music artists all have different opinions on people illegally downloading and trading their music, some are completely for it as it gets the music flowing, and others are very much against that as they feel they are being robbed of their efforts.
Major artists may not be too against the illegal downloading of music as they have already made a great sum of money from music and their endorsements and live shows would boost their paycheque, but with smaller and upcoming artists music piracy can be very effective on their career, as they aren't receiving much income from the music they make and would rely completely on live shows to make money.
The past decade has brought about a major shift in income streams for the music business. Musicians have seen a spectacular rise in income from live performances which contributed to a significant increase in their overall revenue. The labels on the other hand are struggling, mostly due to the decreased revenue from recorded music. - TorrentFreak
the Times Online published an interesting graph plotting the various revenue figures over the last 5 years, as reported by the UK music industry themselves. The data clearly shows how the distribution of music industry income has shifted over time. Music labels earn less from recorded music today than they did five years ago, while artists have seen a huge increase in revenues from live performances.
As piracy would have a negative effect on the music industry it may have a positive effect on the live performance industry, as the money that would not have been spent on an artists album may go to the concert tickets to see them perform live.
Music sales are not affected by web piracy :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21856720
How piracy effects major labels:
https://blog.zintro.com/2011/01/07/how-are-illegal-downloads-damaging-the-record-labels-and-overall-music-industry/
How piracy may effect Independent labels:
http://copy-me.org/2014/08/can-indie-labels-survive-piracy/
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2007/12/music/is-piracy-killing-independent-music
7. Ownership
Media Ownership – Who owns the music/media involved? What is the institutional structure? Who has creative control? Who dominates/has power in the music industry?
Why artists should retain ownership of their music
Below
Artists become involved in feuds and problems over ownership of created music.
CASE STUDIES
Degree of Ownership: Music
The issue of ownership can become a very complicated issue when it is applied to music. One way to examine the situation is to see where the money actually goes that a person would pay to experience a piece of music.
At the most basic level there are two parties that are always involved with the creation of music and can claim some degree of ownership over a musical performance regardless of how the music is experienced. There is the artist who wrote a given piece of music, and there is also the performer who performs a given piece. These two people can be the same person, but they do not have to be. In the case where they are not the same person, both individuals can claim a large share of ownership of a given performance. Without the composer, there would not be a musical piece to play for an audience, and without the performer the audience would never be able to experience music.
In the modern commercial music landscape there is also a third party which can lay claim to a portion of this ownership pie. That third party is the record company itself which often claims ownership of muscial pieces through copyright law. It is the record company which owns the distribution rights of a given musical piece. In a sense, they buy the rights from the artists through record contracts to control who can and cannot experience a piece of music. It is a similar type of role that a museum would have with a painting or sculpture. Just as a museum buys a piece of art and charges people to view it, a record company buys the rights to distribute a peice of music and charges people to listen to it.
With the emergence of MP3's over the last few years, the commercial landscape is beginning to radically change, and record companies are struggling with finding ways to maintain their ownership rights over the creation of their artist's music.
Fan Issues: Music
The issue of copying MP3 files over the Internet raises many interesting ethical issues for fans. While it is extremely convenient and cheap for a fan to obtain all of the songs that he wishes over the Internet, a fan is in fact stealing from the artist when he obtains a recording of a song for which he has not paid. In a study done by VNU Entertainment Marketing Solutions, sales of CD's within 5 miles of college campuses, where the vast majority of Napster users reside, declined 4 percent over the past 2 years. (
Kane ) It is possible that this theft could reach a point where the artist loses all his incentive to create music, and then the fans would be left with no new music. In order to prevent that disastrous outcome, fans need to consider what is proper use of the artist's work so that the artist is properly compensated and continues to produce high quality music.
One of the reasons that people seem to be so willing to download pirated music is that many people feel that they are being ripped off by record companies when they pay upwards of $18 for a CD when the consumer may only want only one track off of the disc. (
Barry ) MP3's allow a fan to obtain exactly the songs that he wants, but unfortunately there is no way to properly compensate the artist for his work in this case.
The challenge for the record industry is to find a way to supply the fans with the digital MP3's that are obviously in demand while properly paying the artists so that music continues to be made. There currently is no system in place that seems to be able to solve this problem in a way that satisfies all parties involved.
Case Study: Napster and MP3's
The software application Napster has been in the public eye much recently. Napster is a program that makes it extremely easy to find and download music in MP3 format. While there is nothing inherently illegal about writing a program that allows for the transfer of files across the Internet, the bulk of the files transferred through Napster are songs that are protected under United States copyright law. The people who use Napster and download MP3's have not paid for the legal use of this copyrighted material, and these people are in violation of these laws.
Napster has been in the headlines lately because a number of recording artists, including popular acts such as Metallica and Dr. Dre, have recently sued Napster for infringement of copyright law. Metallic went as far as to submit a list of 300,000 users who had downloaded their music through Napster and demanded that they be revoked of their Napster privileges.
Artists such as Metallica and every record company are extremely upset with Napster since they see the program as stealing their artwork, and with it the money that would normally go along with it. Howie Klein, the president of Reprise Records says, "The people who are on the board of directors and in the upper-level management of Napster all belong in prison." (Levy)
However, not all artists are against the distribution of their music through services such as Napster. Artists such as Limp Bizkit, Offspring, and Neil Young have come out in support of Napster. (Levy) From their standpoint, they are for anything that brings their music to their fans regardless of the legal or economic considerations. In fact, groups such as Offspring are planning on using the Internet and MP3's to distribute new songs to their fans from their own website free of charge. (Lash)
The debate over the use of Napster is a hot topic right now, and it raises many interesting legal and ethical issues over the use of easily reproduced and transferred copyrighted material. The distribution of music across the Internet has proved to be very popular, and people are now struggling with how to best use this tool to get music to the fans.
8. Synergy Convergence
Synergy Convergence:
Why not create something from nothing?
Definition:
A term used to describe when different entities cooperate advantageously for a final outcome. Simply defined, it means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Further:
It's the strategy of synchronizing and actively forging connections between directly related areas of entertainment. Look at the above photo (of HSM) and then read this again, should be making sense.
Symbiosis is the linking up of various companies to make profits from one product
The photo below may also help to understand...
CASE STUDIES
Sony Synergy Convergence
http://www.slideshare.net/vanessahughes/synergy-convergence-in-sony-music-entertainment
https://prezi.com/phuydee8suij/sony-music-entertainment-convergence-and-synergy/Importance of
Synergy and Convergence in production, distribution and marketing.
http://mediachs.edublogs.org/the-importance-of-cross-media-convergence-and-synergy-in-production-distribution-and-marketing/
Importance of Convergence
Artists and iTunes, can make exclusive iTunes releases that will generate more income for the company
Technologies will help consume music, Apple devices, MP3s, PCs
