For the first time the IJMBR is published by the International Music Business Research Association (IMBRA) that was founded on Oct. 2nd, 2015 at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna/Austria. The October 2015 issue opens with a fundamental article, “Life is live: Experiencing music in the digital age”, by Beate Flath of University of Paderborn/Germany. She highlights how digitisation has dramatically changed the experience of music reception. Based on Alvin Toffler’s concept of prosumption, she argues that the separation between active music producers and passive music consumers has become porous. José M. Alvarez-Monzoncillo and Juan Calvi of the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid/Spain contribute the second article on “Music consumption in Spain: From analogue to digital in the shaping of music”. They argue that consumption of digital music takes place in a new type of mass market, that is even more concentrated than in the decades before. They based their arguments on a comparative study indicating that there is no difference between music consumed on digital channels, on the radio or in physical formats. The October issue closes with “The Evolution of music blogs: From a fan’s passion to a promotional outlet” by Beatrice Jetto of the University of Technology and Charles Sturt University in Sydney/Australia. She argues that record labels “went from suing blogs for digital copyright infringements to collaborating with them for the promotion of their artists”. She highlights four different phases in the evolution of music blogging: (1) the amateur phase; (2) the diversification phase; (3) the promotional phase and (4) the professional phase.
Volume 4, no 2, October 2015
Editorial by Peter Tschmuck, pp. 4-6
Beate Flath: Life is live: Experiencing music in the digital age, pp. 7-26
Music Business Research 
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