<p><strong>Bakgrund:</strong> Musikindustrin har upplevt omvälvande förändringar det senaste decenniet, där skivbolagen har tappat 50 % av sin försäljning sedan år 2000. Minskningen beror till stor del på det teknologiska paradigmskifte som skett i och med digitaliseringens intåg i musikindustrin, ett intåg som förändrat marknadsvillkoren för berörda parter.</p><p><strong>Syfte: </strong>Syftet är att förstå hur marknadsledande företag påverkas och handlar under teknologiska paradigmskiften, med utgångspunkt från skivbolagsindustrin. Vidare ämnar vi undersöka vad skivbolagen har haft för roll inom musikindustrin och hur den ser ut i dag efter digitaliseringens intåg.</p><p><strong>Metod:</strong> Uppsatsen är baserad på fyra intervjuer samt en e-postkorrenspondens med personer som har upplevt industrins utveckling de senaste åren. Som komplement till intervjuerna används sekundärdata.</p><p><strong>Resultat:</strong> Skivbolagen upplevde svårigheter i och med det teknologiska paradigmskifte som digitaliseringen stod för. Skivbolagen har efter ett defensivt beteende där de motverkat förändringen börjat arbeta för att skapa affärsmodeller som är applicerbara på den digitala marknaden. Studien visar även att skivbolagen har en viktig roll i musikindustrin, då de fungerar som en samordnare för de många funktioner som är involverade i en musikproduktion.</p> / <p><strong>Background: </strong>Music industry has experienced substantial change in the last decade, in which record companies have lost 50% of its sales since the year 2000. The decrease is largely due to the technological paradigm shift that has taken place with the digitalization of the music industry. These changes have changed market conditions for existing companies.</p><p><strong>Aim:</strong> The aim of this study is to understand how market leading companies affects from and act during changes in technological paradigms with a focus on the record industry. Furthermore we will investigate the record companies’ role in the market and what their role is today after the digitalization of the market.</p><p><strong>Method:</strong> This essay is based on four interviews and one e-mail correspondence with people who have experienced the development of industry in the last decade. As complement secondary data has been used.</p><p><strong>Results:</strong> Record companies suffered difficulties due to the technological change of paradigm which was the result of digitalization. After defensive behavior the companies started to create new business models applicable on the digital market. This study also shows that record companies do have an important role in music industry as whole, as they work as a coordinator to the many functions involved in a music production.</p>

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.

Bakgrund: Musikindustrin har upplevt omvälvande förändringar det senaste decenniet, där skivbolagen har tappat 50 % av sin försäljning sedan år 2000. Minskningen beror till stor del på det teknologiska paradigmskifte som skett i och med digitaliseringens intåg i musikindustrin, ett intåg som förändrat marknadsvillkoren för berörda parter. Syfte: Syftet är att förstå hur marknadsledande företag påverkas och handlar under teknologiska paradigmskiften, med utgångspunkt från skivbolagsindustrin. Vidare ämnar vi undersöka vad skivbolagen har haft för roll inom musikindustrin och hur den ser ut i dag efter digitaliseringens intåg. Metod: Uppsatsen är baserad på fyra intervjuer samt en e-postkorrenspondens med personer som har upplevt industrins utveckling de senaste åren. Som komplement till intervjuerna används sekundärdata. Resultat: Skivbolagen upplevde svårigheter i och med det teknologiska paradigmskifte som digitaliseringen stod för. Skivbolagen har efter ett defensivt beteende där de motverkat förändringen börjat arbeta för att skapa affärsmodeller som är applicerbara på den digitala marknaden. Studien visar även att skivbolagen har en viktig roll i musikindustrin, då de fungerar som en samordnare för de många funktioner som är involverade i en musikproduktion. / Background: Music industry has experienced substantial change in the last decade, in which record companies have lost 50% of its sales since the year 2000. The decrease is largely due to the technological paradigm shift that has taken place with the digitalization of the music industry. These changes have changed market conditions for existing companies. Aim: The aim of this study is to understand how market leading companies affects from and act during changes in technological paradigms with a focus on the record industry. Furthermore we will investigate the record companies’ role in the market and what their role is today after the digitalization of the market. Method: This essay is based on four interviews and one e-mail correspondence with people who have experienced the development of industry in the last decade. As complement secondary data has been used. Results: Record companies suffered difficulties due to the technological change of paradigm which was the result of digitalization. After defensive behavior the companies started to create new business models applicable on the digital market. This study also shows that record companies do have an important role in music industry as whole, as they work as a coordinator to the many functions involved in a music production.

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

Nätverksansatsen har kritiserats av flertalet forskare inom den företagsekonomiska vetenskapen för att vara för statisk och brista i sin förmåga att förklara radikala förändringar i industriella nätverk. Ansatsen om kritiska händelser i industriella nätverk har vuxit fram som en förklaringsmodell till sådana radikala nätverksförändringar. Denna studie har som syfte att bidra till en ökad förståelse för radikala förändringar i industriella nätverk genom att diskutera vidare konceptet kritiska händelser som kraft för förändring i nätverk. Studien bygger på skivbolaget Sony Music Swedens erfarenheter om hur och varför skivbolagets nätverk utvecklats sedan tiden före digitaliseringen av musik. Empirin är erhållen genom kvalitativa, personliga intervjuer med tre personer i chefspositioner på Sony Music Sweden i Stockholm och analyseras med hjälp av delar av nätverksansatsen och ansatsen om kritiska händelser i industriella nätverk. Studien visar att två olika kritiska händelser tillsammans och samtidigt orsakat radikala förändringar i skivbolagets nätverk. Studien indikerar således att radikal dyadförändring kanske inte alltid kan särskiljas från radikal nätverksförändring som i ett sekventiellt händelseförlopp utlöst av förändring inom en dyad, såsom det föreslås i nätverksansatsen och ansatsen om kritiska händelser i industriella nätverk.

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

Music catalog trading has become something of a trend in recent years, with global stars selling their catalogs for millions of dollars. Industry players such as record labels and music publishers have traded catalogs and their underlying intellectual property rights between themselves for a long time but now resourceful venture capitalists have seen opportunities for returns, and have thus entered the market. This raises questions about the relative power of industry players and their functions as industry institutions, and how these may change as venture capital firms that are not fundamentally anchored in the music industry begin to trade in the music industry's most important resource, the music itself. Previous research has focused on catalog trading from an artist's perspective and how artists can leverage their catalogs and market positions to generate revenue, and what this means for individual artists' cultural autonomy. Furthermore, previous research has also focused on the development of economic models for the valuation of music catalogs. Based on theories of substantive and institutional dimensions of power, this study aims to discuss and analyze how the ongoing catalog trade may lead to a restructuring of current power dynamics in the music industry and the underlying factors behind the emergence of the ongoing catalog trade. We have conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with stakeholders connected to the music and finance industries, thus shedding light on the catalog trade from different perspectives. The results show that it is not possible to point to any single factor as a catalyst for the currently prevalent catalog trade. Rather, it is an ongoing process in which actors both inside and outside the music industry are navigating a rapidly changing environment and working to maintain their positions of power and industrial relevance.

Record Companies in Sweden- 100 years of music business institutionalisation This thesis is about the development of Record Companies in Sweden over more then hundred years. The Aim is to understand the role of the record company in the change of the music industry by narrating and interpreting its development. The Record Companies did dominate the music industry in Sweden from its birth 1903 until after year 2000, when new forms of music business were born. Despite this the remaining record companies still have similarities with the firs gramophone company from 1903. The empirical story is based on some 20 interviews with central actors in the music industry together with a mapping of the independent music producers, published 2004 and material from other studies on the music business. The story is in it self an important contribution to research since it appears to be the first one done in this way. The conception of the record company as the dominant actor in the organisational field, the music industry, very soon became an institution. This institution has been created and developed in an institutional process that here is analysed in four themes: delimitations, dominant logics, and organising and ownership structure/actors. During the process the limitations for the record company and the organisational field is changing. The logic is being push towards either art or comers during different periods, different forms of organising are created and developed and actors turn up and disappear. A main conclusion is that the cognitive processes highlight the institutionalisation but also the normative and the regulative processes helps to explain. At the same time this must, as in the model developed in the thesis, be connected to the four themes in order to create the holistic understanding of the institutionalization of the music business in Sweden being demanded in the aim of the thesis. In the model the actors are being emphasized as most important in the creation, remaining, developing, changing and at the and also liquidation of the institutional conception of the record company as the dominant form of music business. Partly this could be explained by and in itself explain the lack of a strong common organization in the music business together with the rather limited impact from attempts of regulations. New and old actors are now defined as institutional entrepreneurs as they are creating the new music industry, forcing the record companies to step aside from its dominant role in the same way as the music publishers once did. They might even give the dominance back to the publishers, or maybe there will not bee yet another institution in the music industry or any dominant role. Maybe it will change into something completely different? The model developed and used in this thesis is proposed for use in other longitudinal studies especially in other art businesses and similar organizational fields. / Avhandlingen framlagd vid Göteborgs universitet.

The record industry has been around for just over 100 years and it’s an industry that mostly has been growing and growing ever since its inception. New technology has always pushed the industry forwards and helped it grow bigger and bigger with almost each year. But when the internet came in the early 2000’s it changed everything. It caused a stir in the industry when the music consumers now had the possibility to rip CD's, download music files illegally and share them with the world for free. In desperate actions to try to save the record labels from going bankrupt they did all in their power to fight the change. What eventually happened was that other actors came in and saved the business with services that embraced the change from a physical way of consuming music, to a new digital one.   This is a study of how that change has been perceived and affected the record labels and their ways of working. By using Paul Hirschs modell charting the organization of the pop music industry and the four processes that Tschmuck describes as the core activities of a record label, we’ve interviewed six record labels in the Stockholm area in an attempt to describe the new core activities and organization of the industry now that the digitization has changed the way the customers consume music.   Our findings show that the value added chain that Hirsch modelled has changed drastically, with several actors losing importance in it, while others actors has traded places. The core activities that Tschmuck described remains the same, but the ways they are executed has become more effective thanks to the new technology.

I takt med den digitala revolutionen har vidden av skivbolagens aktiviteter reducerats. Idag kan individer göra mycket på egen hand som skivbolagen traditionellt sett gjort för sina artister. Rollen som de spelar anses inte vara lika väsentlig i en artists karriär till följd av digitaliseringen.       Syftet med denna studie är att skapa förståelse för hur skivbolagens roll ser ut i en digitaliserad och tjänst-dominerad musikbransch. För att kunna besvara syftet har tre semistrukturerade intervjuer utförts, varav en består av två respondenter. Intervjuerna genomfördes med skivbolagen Universal Music, Amuse och ett independent bolag i Stockholm.      Studiens empiri visar att aktiviteterna som skivbolag utför är anpassat utefter digitala medier, samt att alla respondenter menar att även om artister i dagsläget kan göra allting själva, är det lättare att lyckas med hjälp av ett skivbolag.      Slutsatserna som nåtts är att skivbolagens roll ser ut på det viset att de är artisternas partner, som innebär att de är med dem, och inte för dem. Rollen skivbolagen har i en digitaliserad och tjänst-dominerad musikbransch innebär att de erbjuder artisterna kunskap, kontakter och kapital. Skivbolagens roll har försvagats inom de traditionella aktiviteterna marknadsföring och distribution, och anses istället finnas som stöd och komplement inom dessa aktiviteter. Skivbolagens roll har istället blivit viktigare när det gäller att upptäcka, bygga samt driva artisternas karriärer. / With the digital revolution, the scope of record labels’ activities have been reduced. Today, individuals can do a lot on their own, that record labels have traditionally done for their artists. The role they played is not considered as important in the career of an artist today, due to digitization.      The aim of this essay is to examine and create insight on how record labels’ role looks like in a digitalized and serice-dominated music industry. To do this, three interviews have been carried out, whereof one interview included two respondents. The interviews were held with the record labels Universal Music, Amuse and an independent label in Stockholm.      The results show that the activities that record labels perform are adjusted according to digital media. The results also show that all of the respondents claim that even though artists today can do everything on their own, it is easier to succeed with the help of a record label.      The conclusion is that the record labels’ role is that they are partners with their artists, which means that they are with them, and not for them. The role record labels have in a digitalized and service-dominated music industry is that they offer knowledge, connections and capital to their artists. The record labels’ role has been weakened within the traditional activities marketing and distribution. Instead, they are regarded as existing as a support and complement within these activities. The record labels’ role has therefore become more important in finding, building and operating artists’ careers.