Search results

Record company mergers and intense commercial pressures are making life difficult for existing stars and wannabees alike

Baila and calypso, music styles traditionally used as vehicles for social commentary, are changing in response to new recording and distribution capabilities in developing countries. Traditional lyrics, which typically conveyed a message about local issues, are being replaced by nonsense lyrics or more general content to satisfy a larger, more diverse audience. Lyrics also are losing significance as instrumentation grows more complex, in response to such influences from North America as jazz and soul. These changes suggest that traditional music styles may lose their concrete communicative properties as they are adapted to the recording industry.

Music plays an important, and sometimes overlooked part in the transformation of communication and distribution channels. With a global market volume exceeding US$40 billion, music is not only one of the primary entertainment goods in its own right. Since music is easily personalized and transmitted, it also permeates many other services across cultural borders, anticipating social and economic trends. This article presents one of the first detailed empirical studies on the impact of internet technologies on a specific industry. Drawing on more than 100 interviews conducted between 1996 and 2000 with multinational and independent music companies in 10 markets, strategies of the major players, current business models, future scenarios and regulatory responses to the online distribution of music files are identified and evaluated. The data suggest that changes in the music industry will indeed be far-reaching, but disintermediation is not the likely outcome.

Individual intellectual property right holders in music cannot easily enforce their statutory claims to exclusive usage and remuneration. Since the middle of the 19th century, composers and publishers have responded by creating collective bodies, so-called collecting societies which monitor musical activity in a given territory, and collect and distribute fees accordingly. These societies, first established in Western Europe, operate on two principles: the principle of reciprocity, linking monopolistic national societies and the principle of solidarity, making a collecting service available to all right holders at roughly the same rate. The rise of the global media corporation combined with new digital production and distribution technologies has seriously undermined these principles. The article reports recent trends drawing on over 30 interviews with executives of the five largest multinational music firms and the major copyright institutions in Germany, Japan, Sweden and the UK, including the European Commission, the World Intellectual Property Organization and national and international trade bodies. We conclude that the present structure of music copyright is likely to collapse, skewing the distribution of revenues in favour of big corporate players and global musical products if there is no institutional intervention. Policy implications are discussed.

Es ist oft nicht leicht für den einzelnen Inhaber musikalischer Urheberrechte, den gesetzlichen Anspruch auf exklusive Nutzung und Vergütung durchzusetzen. Seit Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts haben Komponisten und Verleger auf dieses Problem mit der Bildung kollektiver Selbstorganisationen, sogenannter Verwertungsgesellschaften, reagiert. Diese überwachen die musikalischen Tätigkeiten in einem bestimmten Territorium und kümmernn sich geichermaßen um die Eintreibung und Verteilung der eingenommenen Lizenzgebühren. Diese Gesellschaften, die zunächst in Westeuropa entstanden, funktionieren nach zwei Prinzipien: 1. dem Prinzip der Gegenseitigkeit, indem die nationalen Monopolgesellschaften miteinander vernetzt werden und 2. dem Prinzip der Solidarität, das allen Rechteinhabern den Zugang zu dieser kollektiven Dienstleistung zu etwa gleichen Bedingungen ermöglicht. Durch das Entstehen globaler Medienkonzerne, verbunden mit neuen digitalen Produktions- und Distributionstechnologien, sind diese Prinzipien ernsthaft gefährdet. Die aktuellen Entwicklungstrends werden anhand von mehr als 30 Interviews mit leitenden Mitarbeitern der fünf größten multinationalen Musikkonzerne, der Urheberrechtsorganisationen Deutschlands, Japans, Schwedens und Großbritanniens, der EU-Kommission, der Weltorganisation für geistiges Eigentum sowie nationaler und internationaler Handelsorganisationen nachgezeichnet. Der Beitrag kommt zu dem Schluß, daß die gegenwärtige Struktur in bezug auf musikalische Urheberrechte vor dem Zusammenbruch steht. Die Verteilung wird sich zugunsten großer Unternehmen und globaler musikalischer Produktionen verschieben, wenn nicht auf der institutionellen Ebene interveniert wird. Die politischen Implikationen dieser Entwicklung werden diskutiert. (UNübers.)

Since the beginning of human civilization, music has been used as a device to control social behavior, where it has operated as much to promote solidarity within groups as hostility between competing groups. Music is an emotive manipulator that influences attitude, motivation and behavior at many levels and in many contexts. This volume is the first to address the social ramifications of music's behaviorally manipulative effects, its morally questionable uses and control mechanisms, and its economic and artistic regulation through commercialization, thus highlighting not only music's diverse uses at the social level but also the ever-fragile relationship between aesthetics and morality