The music industry
is a term used to describe a range of
music-related
businesses and organizations. When the term "music industry" is used in a
narrow sense, it refers only to the businesses and organizations that
record, produce, publish, distribute, and market recorded music (e.g., music
publishers, recording industry, record production companies). This
corresponds to the
International Standard Industrial Classification
(ISIC) that includes sound recording and music publishing activities (J-59).
When the term is used
more broadly, it refers to a range of sub-industries that come from a number
of different
industrial classifications,
including Information and Communication (which includes sound
recording and music publishing activities), programming and broadcasting
activities (e.g., radio stations), education (e.g., music
training schools), Arts, entertainment and recreation, and
manufacturing and retail sales (e.g., of musical instruments). In this
broader sense, the term usually also encompasses not-for-profit
organizations such as
Musicians' Unions
and writers'
copyright collectives
and
performance rights organisations.
Until the 1700s, the
process of composition and printing of music was mostly supported by
patronage
from the
aristocracy
and
church.
In the mid-to-late 1700s, performers and composers such as
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
began to seek commercial opportunities to market their music and
performances to the general public. After Mozart's death, his wife (the
soprano
Constanze Weber)
continued the process of commercialization of his music through an
unprecedented series of memorial concerts, selling his manuscripts, and
collaborating with her second husband,
Georg Nissen, on a
biography of Mozart.[1]
In the 1800s, the music
industry was dominated by
sheet music
publishers. In the
United States,
the music industry arose in tandem with the rise of blackface minstrelsy.
The group of music publishers and songwriters which dominated popular music
in the United States was known as
Tin Pan Alley.
In the early
20th century
the
phonograph
industry grew greatly in importance, and
the
record industry
eventually replaced the sheet music
publishers as the industry's largest force.
Just as
radio
and television did before it, the advent of
file sharing
technologies may change the balance between record companies, song writers,
and performing artists. Bands such as
Metallica
have fought back against peer-to-peer programs such as the infamous
Napster,
and the arguments for and against technology to circumvent them -
digital rights management
systems - remain controversial.
With the re-launch of
Napster as a legally licensed download site in 2003 (in the US), along with
the advent of
Apple Computer's
iTunes
online music store in the same year, the
major record companies
have begun to embrace
digital downloading
as the future of the music industry.
Both Napster and iTunes,
with the support of the majors, are promoting a digital music
subscription
service. This may lead to a fundamental
change in the way music is consumed, as a utility that "flows" into a
person's house rather than as a commodity that is bought one-by-one. Music
may well become purchased 'like water' (Leonhard, 2004), in that people will
pay for their monthly consumption of music.
