The Economics of Music – 2nd Edition

In July 2021, the fully updated 2nd edition of “The Economics of Music” has been published by Agenda Publishing, which was reviewed by the eminent cultural economist David Throsby in the TIMES Literary Supplement: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-music-business/

 

Promotional text:

The music industry is one of the most dynamic business sectors. It has had to evolve and adapt to continually changing technologies and business models. Its latest challenge has been Covid-19 and the loss of live music at a time when live performance outstrips music sales as the primary source of income for today’s artists. The second edition of this much used introduction to the economic workings of the music business explores the impact of the pandemic at every level of the sector and considers how the business model may need to change going forward as different stakeholder positions shift. The new edition also examines new trends in the music industry such as the increasing dominance of tech companies and data, the increasing importance of CMOs as market players, the increased role of artist management, which has impacted on new business contracts, as well as changes to how we use music in our everyday lives and how this impacts on new entrepreneurial behaviours around music.

The Economics of Music SECOND EDITION

Peter Tschmuck

Hardback  €79,71 | £60.00  |  $90.00   ISBN 9781788214261

Paperback €26.57 | £18.99  |  $30.00   ISBN 9781788214278

e-book      €18,38 | £18.99  |  $30.00   ISBN 9781788214292

 

264 pages   |  210 x 148mm   |  08 July 2021

 

Series: Economics of Big Business

 

Book order: https://www.agendapub.com/books/165/the-economics-of-music-second-edition

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Book review: The Economics of Music by Peter Tschmuck

My new book “The Economics of Music” is now avaiable in the bookstores. “The Economics of the Music” is a concise, scientifically grounded textbook on the economic fundamentals of the music industry in particular and the music economy in general. It aims to highlight the economic principles that govern the music business by analysing music as an economic good that is protected by copyright law. The book therefore includes a chapter on the microeconomics of music as well as a chapter on the economics of music copyright that is mainly based on findings of institutional economics. The main parts of the book focus on the different sectors of the music industry – music publishing, sound recording, the live music market, and secondary markets such as media and advertising – in order to explain the network of actors in those sectors and how these markets are organised and linked. The music labour markets are treated in a separate chapter. It highlights different income streams for musicians, occupational careers in the music business, and music-related occupations in the wider music economy (education, advocacy, lobbying, etc.). Since digitization has a tremendous impact on the music business, a final chapter on the “Digital Music Business” highlights the new rules, structures, and processes that were established by the digital revolution in order to foreground the structural break the music economy underwent. The last chapter, therefore, refers back to the opening chapter on “A Short Economic History of the Music Business,” which provides an overview from music patronage  to the current digital music economy.

Peter Tschmuck, 2017, The Economics of Music. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Agenda Publishing.

Hardback £55.00 | $70.00 ISBN 9781911116073

Paperback £16.00 | $23.00 ISBN 9781911116080

e-book £16.00 | $23.00 ISBN 9781911116097

Buy a book copy here: Agenda Publishing

New Book: The Experience Factor by Geoff Luck

Geoff Luck of the Finnish Centre for Interdisciplinary Music Research at University of Jyväskylä recently published his new book “The Experience Factor” (see https://www.theexperiencefactor.net/).

From Adele to Zeppelin, every great song has an irresistible quality that keeps us coming back for more. But what exactly is it? And, more importantly, can it be quantified?

The Experience Factor reveals how hit songs stimulate our minds, capture our hearts and seduce our bodies to create irresistible, rewarding experiences we’re driven to repeat again and again. Underpinned by over 200 scientific studies, The Experience Factor includes more than one hundred musical examples to help illustrate the principles described. Representing some of the most successful music ever recorded, these tracks have sold over half a billion copies, been streamed more than 35 billion times, and generated a cool billion dollars in revenue.

If you love listening to music when driving, exercising, socialising or relaxing, discover the incredible ways your favourite tracks hack your basic instincts to keep you tuned-in. If you’re a songwriter, composer, artist or producer, discover how to achieve longterm success on streaming platforms by writing music that captivates listeners and keeps them listening over and over again. If you work with music in marketing & branding, sports, TV, movies or gaming, discover how to create immersive musical experiences with maximum emotional impact.

However you’re hooked on music, The Experience Factor will profoundly connect you with the soundtrack to your life.

Geoff Luck is Associate Professor at the Finnish Centre for Interdisciplinary Music Research at the University of Jyväskylä. An expert on music perception and cognition, his professional interests range from studying the science of sound and music to developing data-driven, engagement-enhancing concepts for the entertainment industry.

Get the book here: https://www.theexperiencefactor.net/get-the-book/

Book Review: The Death & Life of the Music Industry in the Digital Age by Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers’ PhD-thesis at Dublin City University was recently published under the title “The Death & Life of the Music Industry in the Digital Age” at Bloomsbury/London. He interviewed 30 music business professionals in the UK and Ireland from 2007 to 2010 to answer the main research question if the Internet caused a crisis in the music industry that is signalling its final collapse or if it, in contrast, resulted in an intensive restructuring and reordering within the industry.

He concludes that the music industry has not undergone a fundamental structural upheaval but was reshaped by an evolutionary change. Rogers observes more continuities than discontinuities in the music industry and states that most of the music industry actors do more or less the same things but in a different way. In the following I highlight how the author comes to such a conclusion.

Book Review: “Download!” by Phil Hardy

“Download! How the Internet Transformed the Record Business” by music industry journalist Phil Hardy is a detailed analysis how the majors record companies lost control of the value added chain in the music industry in the digital revolution. He tells the story about self-confident and maybe arrogant music business executives, who had profited from the CD revolution in the 1990s, but were outmanoeuvred by industry outsiders who set up a totally new added value network for recorded music. The once highly profitable record business that attracted investors from other industries in the 1980s and 1990s turned into a laboratory of digitalization with declining record sales, job losses and divestments of pressing plants and distribution networks in the 2000s. “Download!” is, therefore, an important contribution to understand the impact of Internet and new media on the transformation of the recorded music industry.

Book Review: Music Business and the Experience Economy. The Australasian Case

“Music Business and the Experience Economy” is the first book on the music business in Australasia from an academic perspective. In a cross-disciplinary approach, the authors deal with a wide-range of topics concerning the production, distribution and consumption in the digital age. The interrelationship of legal, aesthetic and economic aspects in the production of music in Australasia is also highlighted as well as the emergence of new business models, the role of music file sharing, and the live music sector. In addition, the impact of the digital revolution on music experience and valuation, the role of music for sports and branding, and last but not least the developments of tertiary music education, are discussed from different perspectives.

Peter Tschmuck, Philip L. Pearce and Steven Campbell (eds.), 2013, Music Business and the Experience Economy. The Australasian Case. Heidelberg & New York: Springer, ISBN: 978-3-642-27897-6.

For a more detailed book review please click here for further reading.

Creativity and Innovation in der Music Industry – 2nd edition

It is unusual to make a review of a book’s second edition. However, when “Creativity and Innovation in the Music Industry” was published in 2006 the outcome of the great transformation process of the music industry was anything than clear. Therefore, it was a great opportunity to revisit the developments in the music industry in the first five years after the millenium and to extent the historic analysis until 2011. This results in a total revision of the chapter on the “Digital Revolution” in the music industry. In the revised version the ongoing process of oligopolization of the recorded music industry is highlighted as well as the market entry of players from outside the industry in the music market. It is also shown that the digital revolution has transformed an initially album driven to a single track market that accounts for the sales slump of recorded music rather than file sharing did – as I pointed out extensively in this blog. However, the main finding in the second edition is that the digital revolution does not only create a totally new value-added network in the music indutsry, but results also in the emergence of a new aesthetic paradigm, just as Jazz became in the 1920s and Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1950s. Therefore we can call the current paradigm shift in the music industry the “Digital Music Revolution”, since electronic dance music has the potential to impact the music creation for decades. “Instead of a song, which can be attributed to creators, a digital track can be used, changed, mixed and transformed. Music, therefore, will become fluid, which will chnage not only the existing copyright regime but also the meaning of music in a new social and cultural context” (pp. 196).

 

Peter Tschmuck, 2012, Creativity and Innovation in the Music Industry, 2^nd edition, Springer Heidelberg. ISBN 978-3-642-28429-8, e-ISBN 978-3-642-28430-4

Print copies can be directly ordered from Springer Publishing. However single book chapters are also available as an eBook version.

Ticket Masters – Part 6: The Begin of a New Era – the Ticketmaster-Live Nation Merger

“Ticket Masters. The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped” by Dean Budnick and Josh Baron is one the first books that highlight the emergence of the modern concert industry by telling the story of the rise of its main players: Ticketmaster and Live Nation. It gives a deep insight into the processes within the network of concert promoters, ticketing firms and artist agencies and how this network has evolved over the decades.

In the last part of the summary of Budnick’s and Baron’s book the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation as well as the emergence of 360 deals are highlighted.

Ticket Masters – Part 5: SFX Entertainment and the Revolution in the Concert Promotion Business

“Ticket Masters. The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped” by Dean Budnick and Josh Baron is one the first books that highlight the emergence of the modern concert industry by telling the story of the rise of its main players: Ticketmaster and Live Nation. It gives a deep insight into the processes within the network of concert promoters, ticketing firms and artist agencies and how this network has evolved over the decades.

Until the mid-1990s the US concert promotion business was dominated by local venues and promoters. This changed dramatically when SFX Entertainment appeared on the scene. In part 5 the rise of SFX Entertainment to the main power of concert promotion and its transformation into Live Nation is summarized.

Ticket Masters – Part 4: Online Ticketing and the Secondary Market

“Ticket Masters. The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped” by Dean Budnick and Josh Baron is one the first books that highlight the emergence of the modern concert industry by telling the story of the rise of its main players: Ticketmaster and Live Nation. It gives a deep insight into the processes within the network of concert promoters, ticketing firms and artist agencies and how this network has evolved over the decades.

In the first decade of 21^st century the ticketing market was fundamentally changed by the launch of online ticket platforms on the Internet. In part 4 Ticketmaster’s strategy towards online ticketing is highlighted as well as the rise of ticket scalpers to secondary market ticketing firms is outlined.