Music Business Research 2013 – in retrospective

 

Dear readers of the music business research blog,

The take-over of EMI’s recorded music arm by Universal Music Group was still on the agenda in 2013. The EU Commission ordered Universal Music to divest EMI Recording Ltd. (including EMI’s Parlophone label group, with the exception of the Beatles), Chrysalis (but without the Robbie Williams catalogue) and Mute Records, EMI and Virgin Classical as well as the local EMI branches in France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic/Slovakia and Universal Greece. Thus, the Parlophone Music Group was sold to Warner Music for GBP 487m. The EU Commission eventually cleared the deal in May 2013.

2013 was also the year of booming music streaming services. Led by Spotify, music streaming services reported a growing number of users and increasing revenues. The market entry of Apple with iTunes Radio and Google with All Access raised the expectations of a turnaround in the recorded music market. In the series of six blog entries “Is Streaming the Next Big Thing?”, I tried to assess if these expectations are legitimate from the labels’, artists’, consumers’ and streaming services’ perspective on the basis of an international market analysis.

The booming music streaming market was the perfect starting point for the 4^th Vienna Music Business Research Days “The Future of Music Licensing” (June, 20-21, 2013). The role of collecting societies in the digital age was as well discussed as the EU directive on collective rights management and the need for a comprehensive database of music licences. In the course of the VMBR-Days the best paper of the Young Scholars’ Workshop was awarded for the second time. Sisley Maillard of the Université Telecom ParisTech was awarded for her paper “Consumer Information in the Digital Age: Empirical Evidence from the Spillovers in the Music Industry” as well as Francisco Bernardo/Luis Gustavo Martins of the Catholic University of Portugal in Porto for “Disintermediation Effects in the Music Business – A Return to Old Times”. Both papers are considered for publication in the International Journal of Music Business Research (IJMBR).

In 2013, the second volume of the IJMBR was published with two issues in April and October. The special October issue was entirely devoted to the analysis of the Australian music economy:

Volume 2, no 2, October 2013 – special issue on the Australian Music Economy

Editorial by Patrik Wikström and Peter Tschmuck

Guy Morrow: Regulating Artist Managers: An Insider’s Perspective, pp. 8-35

Phillip McIntyre and Gaye Sheather: The Newcastle Music Industry: An Ethnographic Study of a Regional Creative System in Action, pp. 36-60

Diane Hughes, Sarah Keith, Guy Morrow, Mark Evans and Denis Crowdy: What constitutes artist success in the Australian music industries? pp. 60-80

Volume 2, no 1, April 2013

Editorial by Dennis Collopy and Peter Tschmuck

Michael Huber: Music Reception in the Digital Age – Empirical Research on New Patterns of Musical Behaviour, pp. 6-34

Juan D. Montoro-Pons, Manuel Cuadrado García and Trinidad Casasús-Estellés: Analysing the Popular Music Audience. Determinants of Participation and Frequency of Attendance, pp. 35-62

John Fangjun Li: The Development of the Digital Music Industry in China during the First Decade of the 21st Century with Particular Regard to Industrial Convergence, pp. 63-86

 

In the next section you can find a list of all theses & papers which were added to the blog in 2013, but also recently published studies and books related to music business/industry research are listed:

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Call-for-papers: 5th Vienna Music Business Research Days

The 5^th Vienna Music Business Research Days will be held at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria, on October 01-03, 2014.

The conference organizers invite scholars (from the postdoctoral level on) who have a research focus on music business/industry related topics to submit a paper proposal for the conference day on October 03, 2014: pdf-version of the call-for-papers

Indicative themes on all music business research areas, include, but not limited to:

• Past, current and future developments in the music industry (recorded music industry, live music sector, music publishing, music retailing and wholesaling, music instruments industry etc.);
• Music market research and music charts research;
• The economic and social situation of musicians as well as the labor market for musicians;
• The management of musicians and music institutions;
• The marketing of music;
• Music branding and sponsoring;
• Public and private funding of the music sector (including new forms of music funding such as crowdfunding);
• Case studies on music companies and other music institutions;
• Legal aspects of the music business (contracts, copyright, competition law/policy etc.);
• Music licensing and collecting societies;
• Music media (radio, TV, online-based media etc.);
• Economic aspects of music genres (classical, pop/rock, jazz, world music markets etc.);
• Business-related music education;
• Music export;
• etc.

Please send an abstract of your proposal to vmbrdays@gmail.com no later than April 30, 2014.

For further information , please click here:

Call-for-papers: Young Scholars’ Workshop 2014

The Young Scholars’ Workshop (October 1st, 2014), as part of the 5^th Vienna Music Business Research Days (Vienna, Austria), invites once again young researchers to submit paper abstracts of all disciplines exploring questions that help understand economic and managerial problems as well as processes of the music business sector and in the field of music management. There are many questions that call for investigation and need to be discussed in music business research, for example:

• What drives innovation in the music business sector?
• How can we scientifically understand and differentiate music business models?
• What do we know about critical success factors? Have success factors changed over time – and has music business (entrepreneurship) changed in general?
• What rationalities affect this very “personal” industry?
• Did the crisis change the management of music business?
• What can we learn about the customer’s willingness to pay for music recordings or related goods?
• Who will control the future music market, e.g., startups or Apple?
• And how can music business research support efforts for innovative business models?

These research questions are not exhaustive, papers may also address other aspects.

The workshop organizers Prof. Dr. Carsten Winter (Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media) and Prof. Dr. Peter Tschmuck (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna) strongly encourage submissions from students at all levels of MA & PhD. Students are supposed to work on their MA or PhD thesis and discuss it with senior researchers of music business research.

Abstracts (of about 1,000 characters) are due by April 30, 2014, and full papers (15-30 pages) are due by August 31, 2014. Only abstracts and papers submitted on time will be considered.

A maximum of 6-8 papers will be selected for presentation to guarantee a workshop atmosphere. The sessions will combine paper presentations and discussions including interactive elements. Information on the acceptance of the paper proposal will be sent until June 2, 2014, at the latest.

Please email your submission to viennamusicresearch@ijk.hmtm-hannover.de

Paper proposals and final papers must be submitted as pdf documents and should include contact information, at least affiliation, e-mail address, telephone number and postal address of the author(s).

Click here for a pdf-version of the call-for-papers

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