Music industry
The
music industry is the
industry that
creates,
performs,
promotes, and
preserves music.
The music industry is made up of:
*
musicians such as
singers
*
musical ensembles
*
Musicians' Unions
*
composers and
songwriters
*
publishers such as
Carlin America* writers'
copyright collectives and
performance rights organisations like
ASCAP and
BMI (or
MCPS and
PRS respectively for the UK)
*
record industry ("record" in this context means sound recordings in fixed form, be they tangible or digital)
**
record producers
**
record manufacturers
**
record labels
**
record distributors
*
A&R*
band managers
*
tour promoters
*
bookers
*
roadiesand so on...The first stirrings of a music industry came in the mid-to-late 18th century, when performers and composers such as
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began to seek opportunities to market their music and performances to the general public, rather than survive entirely on
patronage from the
aristocracy and
church. 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, the slow but steady sale of his manuscripts, and a collaboration with her second husband,
Georg Nissen, on a biography of her first. [
1]
In the
19th century 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.
*Norman Lebrecht,
When the Music Stops: Managers, Maestros and the Corporate Murder of Classical Music, Simon & Schuster 1996
*Christian Imhorst,
The ‘Lost Generation' of the Music Industry, published under the terms of the
GFDL 2004
*
Recording Industry Association of America*
American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers*
Recording Artists' Coalition*
American Federation of Musicians*
Musicians' Union*
Country Music Association*
Academy of Country Music*
MCPS*
Performing Right Society*
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
