This study has the purpose of looking at the current and future position of recordlabels from a context involving the technological developments, while theopportunities for the artists are changing. As the actors inside them music industryfind themselves in an ever changing climate where traditional supply chains arethreatened by new technology, the record labels need to change the way they workin order to maintain their existence in the music industry. The study has beenconducted by interviewing a number of people involved in the music industry, byusing a qualitative method approach. The conclusion of the study shows that thetraditional way of doing business by treating music as a product that makes revenueis gone. Instead the labels have to take on new roles formerly run by third parties inorder to survive and be profitable, especially since artists can now in control ofactivities that used to be controlled by the record label.

The aim of this paper is to define the perceived consumer values that physical record stores create in order to compete with other distribution technologies. A qualitative method has been used, based on interviews with managers of three records stores in Stockholm. Interviews with their customers have been conducted also. The content has been analyzed with passable theories and the two sources have been compared when adequate.The conclusion of the study is that the physical record stores create many different consumer values, and that many of these are hard to transfer to other distribution technologies. One of the most important values for the consumer is that the personnel have a broad knowledge about music. Other notable values are the emotional feelings of searching for something and the atmosphere the record store creates. A pattern that is visible is that the niche record stores create more consumer values then the commercial record store. The conclusions indicate that there are opportunities for niche physical record stores and that the future for the record stores is not as bleak as may be perceived.

In 2007, Radiohead released a downloadable album, In Rainbows, allowing consumers to pay what they thought the album was worth. The band responded to a moment of change in the music industry. Since then, other bands, like Nine Inch Nails and Coldplay, have made similar moves. Radiohead's capability to release an album and let the fans decide its worth relied on the image they built, which foregrounded their commodification. The historic move redefined the boundaries between art and commodity, a well know tension in popular music studies. The thesis focuses on popular music as communication in the changing industry. Using Radiohead’s album as a case study, it looks at the changing boundaries in the tension between art and commodity. The thesis examines Radiohead's performance, its mediation by the press, and what the album’s distribution method meant to the fans.

How the record company EMI records have change thier business model due to technological improvements.

<p>How the record company EMI records have change thier business model due to technological improvements.</p>

<p>The music industry today is undergoing a revolution with digital distribution of music taking over the traditional sales of physical CDs (Mewton, 2008). The peer-to-peer networking and illegal music piracy is a problem that lately has been widely discussed in forums of ethics, legal issues and economical aspects, followed by a music industry trying to solve the situation with new business models enhancing digital sales, e.g. the tip jar model (Hiatt & Serpick, 2007). The tip jar model embodies the problem the industry is facing since it allows the consumer to choose whether to pay or not. Therefore the question of what leads the consumer to pay instead of download or pirate music has been researched in many aspects. However it has been made to a lesser extent in theory of loyalty and liking and their implications on the new business models’ success and the new consumer of music.</p><p>Previous research within music piracy has mainly explored demographics, macro- and micro economical perspectives such as artist and record company loss of welfare and consumer surplus (Coyle et al., 2008). We find it of interest to instead further explore the impacts of theories about consumer liking, loyalty and attitudes (Wells & Prensky, 1996; Shiffman & Kanuk, 1987; Solomon et al., 2002) as an addition to this existing knowledge to enhance the understanding about the new consumer of music. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze artist liking, artist loyalty and attitudinal factors’ impact on consumers’ music piracy intentions. The study is an explanatory study based on quantitative data collected in the region of Jönköping where the collection of data has been conducted by using two questionnaires; one among students at the School of Education and Communication (Jönköping University) and one at the A6 shopping-center. This data has been summarized to create independent variables used in a multiple regression analysis to calculate their impacts on piracy to confirm or reject the from theory deduced hypotheses.</p><p>The results from the multiple regression analysis show that the attitudinal factors do not have a direct impact on piracy intentions; however the other two independent variables, measuring the artist loyalty and artist liking have a larger impact. Surprisingly, a higher level of loyalty increases the intentions to pirate music while, as anticipated from theory (Solomon et al., 2002; Shiffman & Kanuk, 1987), higher liking decreases intentions. The conclusion is that the artist liking variable and artist loyalty variable are resulting in a bridge over piracy where the pillars are built of liking and the bridge itself is built of loyalty, stressing the importance of maintaining high levels of liking to maintain purchasing behavior online.</p>

Syfte och forskningsfråga Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att analysera på vilket sätt majorbolagen marknadsför sina artister på sociala medier och hur kommunikationer ser ut mellan artist och fans. Detta gör vi genom att undersöka vilket medvetet arbete som ligger bakom marknadsföringen, hur detta påverkar relationen mellan artist och fans samt hur detta följs upp. Uppsatsens forskningsfråga formulerades med syftet i åtanke och blev följande: På vilket sätt använder majorbolagen sociala medier för att etablera varaktiga relationer mellan artist och fans? Metod Vi har valt att använda oss av en kvalitativ forskningsmetod. Insamlingen av material har skett genom primärkällor samt sekundärkällor och det empiriska materialet har skett genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Vårt urval av respondenter var sex personer med olika positioner inom musikbranschen, detta för att få en bredare syn på forskningsområdet. Slutsatser Vi har i vår analys kommit fram till att majorbolagen anpassar sin kommunikation till vart fansen befinner sig, hur de pratar, rör sig men även att låta dem vara delaktiga och interaktiva. I uppsatsens analys framkom det även att majorbolagen är i sin marknadsföring noga med att artisten inte ska finnas på alla kanaler om den inte har en aktiv kommunikation. Det är även en fördel att visa andra intressen än musiken. / Purpose and research questions The purpose of this study is to analyze the way in which major companies promote their artists on social media and what the communication looks like between artists and their fans. We do this by making it clear whether there is an underlying work that affects how the marketing appears between artists and fans and if it is possible to follow up the work. To answer this purpose we have created a research question: How do major companies use social media to establish long lasting relationships between artist and fans? Method We have chosen to use a qualitative research method in our thesis. The collection of material has been through primary sources and secondary sources and the empirical material consists of semi-structured interviews. Our selection of respondents was six people with different positions in the music industry, in order to get a broader view of research. Conclusions We have in our analysis concluded that the major companies adapt their communications to where the fans are, how they talk, move, but also to let them be involved and interactive. In the analysis of the thesis it is also revealed that the major companies in their marketing are making sure that the artist should not be on all channels if it doesn’t have an active communication. It is also an advantage to show interests other than music.

Abstract Title: The New Type of Music Industry at AllEars.se (Den nya musikbranschen på AllEars.se) Number of pages: 49 (53 including enclosures) Author: Viktor Backemar Tutor: Else Nygren Course: Media och Communication Studies C Period: Fall 2007 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare AllEars´ own view of the website AllEars.se to an observed view of the same site. The comparison is based on theories regarding the Internet in today’s society, convergence, communities and collective intelligence, interactivity and participation, and business in today’s society. Method: Since the paper has a purpose to compare two views of the same website there are two main methods in use. AllEars´ own view has been created via an interview with the company’s CEO, a press release that was released in connection with the launch of the website and texts found on the website. The other view is based on an observation of the website, preformed in November 2007. Main results: The views are different from each other seeing that AllEars´ own view is more positive than the observed view. The biggest and most crucial difference between the two views where found in the relationship between the producers and the users, in terms of who has got the actual power on the website. The users aren’t the ones who has got the actual power, instead the producers has the power and controls the activity on the website with predesigned rules and limitations. However there are some similarities between the two views: The website has a strong connection to the offline world, a good possibility for the users to interact with each other, and the fact that AllEars.se represents something new in the music industry. Keywords: AllEars.se, music industry, Internet, convergence, communities, collective intelligence, interactivity, participation, SonyBMG, TV4.

The music industry today is undergoing a revolution with digital distribution of music taking over the traditional sales of physical CDs (Mewton, 2008). The peer-to-peer networking and illegal music piracy is a problem that lately has been widely discussed in forums of ethics, legal issues and economical aspects, followed by a music industry trying to solve the situation with new business models enhancing digital sales, e.g. the tip jar model (Hiatt &amp; Serpick, 2007). The tip jar model embodies the problem the industry is facing since it allows the consumer to choose whether to pay or not. Therefore the question of what leads the consumer to pay instead of download or pirate music has been researched in many aspects. However it has been made to a lesser extent in theory of loyalty and liking and their implications on the new business models’ success and the new consumer of music. Previous research within music piracy has mainly explored demographics, macro- and micro economical perspectives such as artist and record company loss of welfare and consumer surplus (Coyle et al., 2008). We find it of interest to instead further explore the impacts of theories about consumer liking, loyalty and attitudes (Wells &amp; Prensky, 1996; Shiffman &amp; Kanuk, 1987; Solomon et al., 2002) as an addition to this existing knowledge to enhance the understanding about the new consumer of music. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze artist liking, artist loyalty and attitudinal factors’ impact on consumers’ music piracy intentions. The study is an explanatory study based on quantitative data collected in the region of Jönköping where the collection of data has been conducted by using two questionnaires; one among students at the School of Education and Communication (Jönköping University) and one at the A6 shopping-center. This data has been summarized to create independent variables used in a multiple regression analysis to calculate their impacts on piracy to confirm or reject the from theory deduced hypotheses. The results from the multiple regression analysis show that the attitudinal factors do not have a direct impact on piracy intentions; however the other two independent variables, measuring the artist loyalty and artist liking have a larger impact. Surprisingly, a higher level of loyalty increases the intentions to pirate music while, as anticipated from theory (Solomon et al., 2002; Shiffman &amp; Kanuk, 1987), higher liking decreases intentions. The conclusion is that the artist liking variable and artist loyalty variable are resulting in a bridge over piracy where the pillars are built of liking and the bridge itself is built of loyalty, stressing the importance of maintaining high levels of liking to maintain purchasing behavior online.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal