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Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Angela Powers / Technological revolutions of the past century have fueled dynamic paradigm shifts across a broad spectrum of mass media industries. This study examines an innovative new market segment in the music recording industry: digital music aggregation. Digital music aggregators are music distributors that directly connect artists, any creator of musical content, to digital music vendors, online music stores such as iTunes or digital music streaming services such as Spotify. Digital music aggregator companies offer services similar to major record labels, such as mass distribution, royalty collection, and intellectual property protection. Digital music aggregators provide services to artists at all levels of prestige and experience. Essentially any artist interested in publishing music can do so using digital music aggregators. Despite their growing influence in the music recording industry, digital music aggregators have been afforded little scholarly attention. This study responds to Galuszka's (2015) call for further research on aggregator market structure and competition, proposing the following research questions: 1) how is the digital music aggregator market structured? 2) What competitive strategies do digital music aggregators employ? This study is framed by the industrial organizational model of market structure (Bain, 1968) and Porter’s (1980) theories of competitive strategy. Six in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted for this study. Results illuminate market structure and competitive strategies in the digital music aggregation industry and lay foundation for future study and industrial application within this nascent branch of the music recording industry.

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This thesis examines the evolution of digital copyright protection in response to the digital challenges, specifically unauthorized file-sharing, in the context of the music industry. It reviews the different strategies used to fight the peer-to-peer technology and its users so as to assess whether the direction which has been taken is in agreement with the ultimate goal of copyright and with other fundamental values of our modern society. It posits that the effort to strengthen the rights of copyright holders and thus maintain an old system of distribution in the face of new technology not only runs afoul the expectations of the public but also prevents the artists and the public from fully taking advantage of the new opportunities of the digital era. This thesis ultimately suggests that policy makers tackling the digital copyright reform should seriously consider legitimizing the use of file-sharing services as a possible way to better achieve the goals of copyright.

This thesis examines the evolution of digital copyright protection in response to the digital challenges, specifically unauthorized file-sharing, in the context of the music industry. It reviews the different strategies used to fight the peer-to-peer technology and its users so as to assess whether the direction which has been taken is in agreement with the ultimate goal of copyright and with other fundamental values of our modern society. It posits that the effort to strengthen the rights of copyright holders and thus maintain an old system of distribution in the face of new technology not only runs afoul the expectations of the public but also prevents the artists and the public from fully taking advantage of the new opportunities of the digital era. This thesis ultimately suggests that policy makers tackling the digital copyright reform should seriously consider legitimizing the use of file-sharing services as a possible way to better achieve the goals of copyright.

The entertainment industry is an impactful part of the U.S. economy. My thesis explores the way Americans consume popular music and how the U.S. economic environment affects the permeability of the music industry to new artists. I use discrete-choice probit models to examine the top 10 weekly singles from the Billboard Hot 100 between 2006 and 2013. I analyze the economic factors and artist characteristics that affect an unestablished artist’s entry into the top 10 of the chart and achievement of the number one chart spot. I also use a Cox proportional hazard model to examine the effects of economic factors and artist characteristics on the number of weeks an artist’s single stays in the top 10 of the Hot 100 chart. I find that having a previous single in the top 100 decreases the predicted probability of a new artist’s song being in the top 10, and having previous singles in the top 10 or top 100 decreases number of weeks an artist’s subsequent single spends in the top 10 of the chart. Additionally, level of GDP per capita increases the number of weeks an artist’s single stays in the top 10 of the chart. Economic well-being perpetuates stability in the consumption of music, and modern culture consumers demonstrate a preference for newness in their endorsement of unestablished artists. As demonstrated by the use of singles between 2006 and 2013, new technologies decrease the costs of engaging with new artists for consumers and allow an artist to achieve success regardless of the artist’s previous success.

The recording industry is little more than one hundred years old. In its short history there have been many changes that have redefined roles, enabled fortunes to be built and caused some to be dissipated. Recording and delivery formats have gone through fundamental conceptual developments and each technological transformation has generated both positive and negative effects. Over the past fifteen years technology has triggered yet another large-scale and protracted revision of the business model, and this adjustment has been exacerbated by two serious economic downturns. This dissertation references the author’s career to provide context and corroboration for the arguments herein. It synthesizes salient constants from more than forty years’ empirical evidence, addresses industry rhetoric and offers methodologies for musicians with examples, analyses, and codifications of relevant elements of the business. The economic asymmetry of the system that exploits musicians’ work can now be rebalanced. Ironically, the technologies that triggered the industry downturn now provide creative entities with mechanisms for redress. This is a propitious time for ontologically reexamining music business realities to determine what is axiological as opposed to simply historical axiom. The primary objective herein is to contribute to the understanding of applied fundamentals, the rules of engagement that enable aspirants and professionals alike to survive and thrive in this dynamic and capricious vocation. The secondary goal is to empower creative practitioners to circumvent systemic injustices that have been perpetrated and perpetuated by the oligopolistic market conditions that have prevailed for most of the century of recorded sound.

This is a study which is looking to explore how and why the leadership styles within the music industry differs from the various sectors of the industry. Seeing how this is a topic which has not been studied very much in the past it is an interesting way of understanding how leadership is conducted within an industry which is changing at such a rapid pace due to technological changes (Tschmuck, 2014). The music industry was divided into three different sectors: Recording and Production, Event Organization, and Orchestras. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with one representative within each sector and each respondent of the interview held a leadership position at a company which operates within the given sector.   The theoretical framework of leadership that was used for this study is the six leadership styles of Daniel Goleman (2000). This was used as the main source of knowledge for leadership theory, but other sources were used to compliment this framework. After analysing the empirical data that was gathered through the interviews it was linked to the theory of Goleman in order to identify what leadership styles and traits were present within each sector.   The conclusions that could be drawn from this multiple case study is that leadership styles differ from one sector to another due to differences in climate, contextual dependency and goals of each organisation.

Over the recent years, technological changes in the music industry have altered the geography of music production and non-creative music work. Progress in information and communication technology has lead to decreasing revenues from record sales, which in turn has affected traditional income models for musicians, in particular income from record sales. Therefore, contemporary musicians need to spend longer periods on tour, thus being spatially fragmented in a multitude of geographies while performing artistic work practices. In light of such changes, new music geographies have started to gain the attention for performing artistic work, in particular temporary geographies at popular music festivals as well as digital online communities.This dissertation explores these spaces of music work and creativity, and the roles played by such spaces for Swedish musicians’ working lives. By using a triangulation of methods, this dissertation addresses three important features of the contemporary music profession. First, I explore the geographies of networks and network relations, and the role of networks for coping with contemporary working conditions. Second, I pay attention to the spaces of non-creative work, particularly in festival backstage areas. Third, I focus on how, when and where musicians perform creative work, and the relation between traditional studio locations and new opportunities for creative work while being on tour. Based on interviews, observations and netnographies, I argue that contemporary musicians perform much non-creative work in temporary festival backstage areas and in online communities while creative work preferably is located to traditional studio environments. I also argue that while female musicians and new-established musicians at large, due to increasing competition, have started to explore online communities, established musicians benefit from networking in face-to-face gatherings in order to gain job opportunities. Thus, there is a distinction between different groups of musicians based on career stage and gender.

From 2000 to 2010, America's music industry's annual revenue went from $4 billion to $2 billion. Much of this is attributed to the internet's ability to provide consumers with easy access to free music, and hip hop has been especially impacted by this trend. Utilizing document analysis and personal interviews, this study found that the success of independent artists has influenced the business strategies of major record companies. In response to a dramatic decrease in record sales, major labels have made more of an effort to sign their artists to 360 deals, which allow the labels to profit from every aspect of an artist's brand or identity. While some independent artists are the main beneficiary of the profits generated from their music and personal brand, they also reify the commodity-form capitalist system by attempting to turn their music and brand into a fetishized commodity and by turning their audience into a commodity.