Creative Mornings Vienna – Revolutions in the Music Industry

On June 26, 2015, the Creative Mornings Vienna were devoted to the topic “revolution”. I had the honor to talk about the “Revolutions in der Music Industry” at University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. For those who did not read my book “Creativity and Innovation in the Music Industry” yet, can enjoy a short YouTube video version on the Jazz revolution, Rock ‘n’ Roll revolution and the current digital revolution in der music industry: “Revolution in the Music Industry – Creative Mornings Vienna, June 26, 2015”.

You can find more on the concept of the international breakfast lecturing series here: http://creativemornings.com/

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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.

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.

Peter Jenner on the Digital Revolution in the Music Industry and the Need for an International Music Registry

On November 23, 2011 the British music manager and record producer Peter Jenner gave a talk on the digital revolution in the music industry and the need for an International Music Registry (IMR) at the Institute of Culture Management and Culture Studies (IKM) of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Peter Jenner has managed Pink Floyd, T Rex, Ian Dury, Roy Harper, The Clash, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Robyn Hitchcock, Baaba Maal and Eddi Reader (Fairground Attraction), Billy Bragg and others. He works at Sincere Management and was the Secretary General of the International Music Managers’ Forum, a director of the UK Music Managers’ Forum and is involved on the advisory board of the Featured Artists Coalition. Currently he is a consultant for the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization (WIPO) to help in the development of  an International Music Registry. More on this project and the rationale behind it can be read in the following abridged version of Peter Jenner’s talk, which was not only authorised but also edited by himself.

Business model “Michael Jackson”

The death of Michael Jackson on June 25, 2009 triggered a sales boom for his music. The American industry magazine Billboard published Soundscan sales figures for his albums the week after the “King of Pop’s” death, showing three of his albums occupying the top positions in the U.S.-album-charts and five more of his albums entering the Billboard-Top-50-list. Jackson’s music also ruled the weekly iTunes and Amazon download-charts after his death.