Lesson 04/05.03.10

Key Terms

• Production - how music is produced and recorded
• Distribution - promoting music and how it is released and accessed
• Consumption - How people take it in -> downloading, cd's
• Web 2.0 - user generated internet -> Youtube, Facebook, Wikipedia
• Convergence - lots of different products coming together into a single product -> Mobile: mp3, phone, camera
• Vertical Intergration - a company allows profit to remain in its company only
  (iPod -> iTunes -> Apple Mac)
• Synergy - Companies teaming up for maximum profit -> O2 & iPhone, Orange Wednesdays, Kerrang & Road Runner, NME & Domino
• Apps - Applications
• SNS - Social Networking Sites -> MySpace, Facebook
• Global Village - The world becoming smaller due to technology, and communication becoming much easier

How does production affect the music industry?

• Cost is no longer an issue & can be made by anybody (prosumer tech)
• No record companies are required
• No musical talent needed
• Wider media (Games - Guitar Hero)
• Charts no longer required

How does distribution affect the music industry?

• Internet (Web 2.0) - can reach anybody across the world
• Shops/Downloading online (iTunes)
• Music Industry losing out due to illegal downloading (Torrents, Limewire)
• Borrowing/renting music (Spotify)
• Difficult to maintain/regulate distribution
• Music Industry need to think of wider distribution techniques

How does consumption affect the music industry?

• Physical format (Cd's, vinal) becoming obsolete/rare -> niche market
• Technology growing -> Music Industry has to keep up because access to music is changing
• Now experienced through multi-media approaches -> video games, apps
• User trends -> downloading means that Music Industry must find alternative ways to make their money

Stafford 2007

'The music industry can be defined as the organisation of the various activities associated with performing and recording music and distributing access to those performances around the world. Because the basis of musical production is accessible to everyone with a modium of talent, the industry is both more 'open' than film making and less easily controllable than traditional broadcast television. This has lead to a longstanding institutional difference between small and 'independent' music organisations and a large corporate 'mainstream'.

- Worldwide
- Production -> Distribution -> Consumption
- It has become easier to create music due to technology, so musical ability is no longer required
- More open -> freedom & access, not financially draining
- Less controllable -> freedom, not regulated
- M.I divided by the types of record labels/institutions
-> Mainstream (Big 4: Sony, Universal, Warner, EMI)
-> Independants (Rough Trade, Domino, Boy Better Know)