Introduction
In 2013 thirty-four Michael Jackson fans sued the King of Pop’s doctor, Conrad Murray, for“emotional damages” derived from the singer’s death. Satisfied that five of the plaintiffs had indeed suffered, a court in Orleans awarded “symbolic damages”
of one euro each in February 2014 (Guardian 2014). Beyond its novelty value, the ruling says much about popular music’s trajectories in contemporary cultures. It reinforces how both the performer and their music speak to and for fans, underlining the deeply subjective modes of our choices and connections. Yet it also says some-thing, perhaps, about the extent to which music fans have adopted the juridical and administrative discourses of industry, that our affective interactions with the star and their music are never far away from being transposed into their base commodity and legal forms (especially if threatened).
Music remains at the centre of popular cultural experience for many; at the same time,“much music is overheard in states of distraction, barely registered consciously, or just the noise of someone else annoying us” (Zuberi 2004: 214). The diversity of popular music experiences (digital game/film soundtrack, shopping centre noise, mobile phone ringtone, on-hold telephone distraction, tribute band pub performance, gym soundtrack, karaoke video or superstar concert) underlines the need to assess popular music as part of a cultural economy of“amusement, ornamentation, self-affirmation, social display” (Scott 1999: 807). Music has been at the forefront of debates about the interplay (and display) of“cultural capital” (Bourdieu 1993) and the commodified cultural form. It is also increasingly visible in cultural/urban policy as cities and towns readily display their own cultural capital to attract tourists, workers and economic capital. It is for these reasons that music is more ubiquitous than other cultural forms in its individual and community uses. As an industry involved in symbolic creation and consumption (Hesmondhalgh 2013; Throsby 2001), the exchange value of its commodified forms resonates historically and aesthetically: “pop was about buying a dream, rock was about buying an experience” (Harron 1990: 180).
The popular music industries share many of the characteristics evident in the broader development of the cultural industries.1 Often leading industrial change
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within audio-visual sectors, recording, publishing and live music companies have also shaped the emergence of the corporate multi-national. The contemporary popular music industries consist offive sectors: live performance; the production and sale of sound recordings; the administration of copyright in compositions and sound record-ings; the manufacture and distribution of music instruments, recording and amplification equipment; and education and training (Dane et al. 1996). These industries have always been highly dynamic (even within monopolistic markets). They can also effect change in the regulation of culture. The particular conditions and uses of technology and labour in popular music also throw light more generally upon the histories and con-temporary conditions of the cultural industries in terms of how pleasure is organized and distributed. The music industries, then, have some claim as the “canary in the coalmine,” announcing cultural and economic shifts in the cultural industries (Baym 2010) and as the“most advanced media model” (Cvetkovski 2013: 67).
Organization: Market to social models?
Economies of scale are important in a set of industries where investment entails high risk: for example, in 2000 only 19 per cent of British single releases achieved chart success (Burke 2011: 298). “Major” recording companies have existed since the 1940s by exploiting economies of scale in manufacturing, marketing and distribution.
Five multinational companies dominated global recording in the 1990s. Subsequent mergers (Sony and the Bertelsmann Group in 2004) and acquisitions (Universal’s purchase of EMI in 2012) have resulted in a concentration of three: Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music. Majors in the 1970s and 1980s such as EMI and Polygram (and earlier companies such as RCA/Victor) were successful for several reasons. First, they relentlessly pursued vertical and/or horizontal integration to overcome deficiencies in either content or hardware (for example, Sony’s purchase of CBS Records in 1991; and the CBS acquisition of Last.fm in 2007). Second, they were able to exert reasonable control over technological innova-tions (from multi-track recording to the Sony Walkman to the emergence of the compact disc) in ways that did not fundamentally change their production and pub-lishing models. Third, this also entailed good control of the value chains of supply (A&R, manufacturing, retail). All these factors ensured, fourth, that oligopolistic conditions transposed to the relative stability of global and national markets (Tschmuck 2006).
The recording sector, of course, does not solely comprise the major companies.
“Indies” (independent recording labels) have played an important role since the 1930s.
Similar to other broadcasting sectors such as television and radio, independents have often been most effective in locating scenes and musicians, “acting as the research and development departments” for the majors (Wikstrom 2009: 128). The (often binary) debates about the merits of smaller independents (managerial synchronicity with creative aims; closer attention to a smaller artist roster) and the larger majors (access to global distribution, promotional, rights chains) for the artist remain.
The decline in the physical/analogue product has been profound since vinyl recording sales peaked in the 1970s, followed by the brief rise associated with the
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shift to CD formats. The recording sector has been slow to recover from the losses sustained by downloading since the 1990s. In 2010 global digital sales revenue increased by 5.3 per cent, while CD sales revenue continued to decrease by 14.2 per cent (Smirke 2011). In 2012 digital download sales increased by 12 per cent, with sub-scription services increasing by 44 per cent (IFPI 2013), driving renewed industry confidence, with global recording industry revenue in 2012 estimated to be $16.5 billion (IFPI 2013). This confidence is partly derived from additional vertical integration through investment in the range of digital cloud and streaming companies. For artists, the reduced scope of the majors in terms of national branch staffing and resources, combined with the increased amount of music available, has perversely reduced the recording sector’s patience with new artists. Increased marketing costs have also meant that the older model of two to three albums for new signings has been replaced with the expectation of immediate hits (Wikstrom 2009: 129). It has also driven greater cross-pollination of genres, with artists more willing to collaborate to explore new markets.
How badly the majors handled digital evolution is evident in the inverted business model of the past twenty years, where live performances have subsidized recording.
Accurate revenue statistics– and a consensus of definitions of “live music” – are rare, but performance revenues have overtaken those of the recording sector in some nations (Laing 2012). Live performance has also assisted in the longevity of older pop and rock heritage acts: the top three grossing performers of 2012 were Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters (IFPI 2013:
23). Reconfigurations of the stadium experience have added new layers of profit, offering more dedicated fans “exclusive” packages comprising VIP passes, privileged concert seating and backstage access. As the leading concert promoter, Live Nation Entertainment has booking rights/equity in 155 venues worldwide (Wikstrom 2009:
60) with ownership of key festivals and sports events in Europe and the United States.
It has exercised itsfinancial power by entering into artist management, with various deals struck with Madonna, Jay-Z, Shakira and U2. Its 2010 merger with Ticket-master now means it is possibly the largest music company in the world. Apart from concerns of duopoly arrangements in national markets such as the United Kingdom (Live Nation and AEG), the influence of the multi-national promoter upon smaller city venue and festival circuits is considerable (Brennan 2011: 70–71).
The“digital crisis” has also seen a belated interest in increasing other public per-formance rights income (broadcasting, bars, nightclubs, gyms, restaurants, shops);
these revenues grew by 9.3 per cent in 2012, accounting for 6 per cent of total industry revenues globally (IFPI 2013: 9). For example, Australian collection societies have won substantial royalty increases for the use of sound recordings in hotels, nightclubs and gyms in recent years (Homan 2010). Gaming is increasingly lucrative;
music content within global games (e.g. RUN-DMC and Ozzy Osbourne in Grand Theft Auto) and licensed music games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero are pro fit-able through initial purchases and subsequent song downloads (Preston and Rogers 2011: 388).
The majors have been accused of collusion in setting retail prices in some markets (Prices Surveillance Authority 1990) and excused of this in others (Monopolies and Mergers Commission 1994). Over the past two decades the recording industry has
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attempted to forestall twenty-first-century technological innovation through resort to nineteenth-century legal rights even while this“time-consuming and exhaustive rear-guard action provides the innovative competitors with valuable technological advantages” (Tschmuck 2003: 130). An equally defensive strategy has been one of co-option through purchasing of the newer distribution rivals (for example, Bertels-mann’s purchase of Napster’s assets in 2002), including the majors’ purchase of equity in Spotify;“the fact remains that the creators and cultural industries that play a role in capturing the audience on behalf of the many free service providers do not appropriate the associatedfinancial benefits” (Farchy 2011: 250). This has led to key hardware (Apple) and content aggregator (Yahoo, Google)firms deploying recording industry content in the name of related cultural experiences and sales.
It is why“the new cultural paradigm (music as service) will replace the old one (music as product)” (Tschmuck 2003: 139). This entails, partly, the rise of music companies that perform the entire range of promotional and service work required in the new global smorgasboard of consumer activities (Baym 2010: 178). Music search “app”
Shazam has transformed the haphazard listening of everyday experience (what was that song in the shopping centre or on TV last night?) into both a commodity and predictive data;fifteen million song searches each day is enormously useful in pre-dicting global shifts in popularity (Datoo 2013). The twentieth-century practice of priming chart success through management purchases or “cooking the books” of retail sales has its twenty-first-century equivalent in buying plays and fake comments on key music web sites (Matthew 2013). This speaks to the enormous amount of work now required in brokering and monitoring both the artist narrative and exposure of the digital release to ensure a modicum of web visibility. New industry jobs have been created in the streaming/online radio sites; consultancy/research work on finding audiences (for example, ReverbNation) and other social media management work (Baym 2010: 179).
Labour, rights and revenues
In Australia, a recent Arts Victoria/Australasian Performing Rights Association survey estimated the mean annual income for musicians to be $12,000 to $15,000, below the national poverty line of $18,616 per year (Graham 2013). This reinforces the mundane reality for the majority of performers: semi-professional circuits shaped by cash-in-hand gig payments, recording company disinterest, and increasing competition for gigs among tertiary-educated songwriters and musicians (Gibson 2003). It is cultural labour that is often precarious and part-time, that deploys a mix of artistic, cultural and technical expertise (Ellmeier 2010). Indeed, the connected DIY musician is urged to think of themselves akin to “tech startups” in terms of entrepreneurial strategies (Darker 2014).
At a 2013 public debate in Melbourne, one of the defenders of the existing system proposed that copyright “was a human right … the foundation of our society … necessary for freedom of expression” (Fraser 2013). We see here a contemporary expression of modern liberalism that equated property laws with an essential free-dom within Western democracies (see Cvetkovski 2013: 10–25). Despite the lack of
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evidence that the strengthening of copyright laws increases creative output (Towse 2011: 129), intellectual property law has always spectacularly lagged behind industrial and technological change.“As the first cultural industry to make use of both digital processes and the new forms of communication, exchange and distribution of the internet” (Laing 2003: 252), music was also the first to contend with the broader social and economic implications of the digital commodity.
The ninety-nine cents set by Apple for individual iTunes songs– the “global psy-chological price ceiling for downloads” (Farchy 2011: 251) – has inevitably influenced internet royalty rates, which remain low across webcast radio, digital stores and streaming services. This has not prevented internet music companies seeking lower royalty rates (Pandora’s legal action against ASCAP, the American Society of Com-posers, Authors and Publishers in 2012) while collection societies take to the courts in the name of higher rates (Broadcast Music Inc. against Pandora). Spotify’s arguments that they have eroded illegal downloading in key markets and are overtaking royalty rates paid by traditional broadcasters are weakened by their low royalty rates: an average of $0.006 to $0.0084 per stream (Spotify 2013).2Despite a consumer base of twenty-four million listeners, Spotify lost $60million in 2013 (McDuling 2013); it is an important test case in whether streaming services can simultaneously satisfy fans, musicians, recording companies and advertisers.
The “music copyright debate has observed one of the key Foucaultian tenets of governance: that a failure in regulation and policing inevitably leads to greater reg-ulation and policing” (Homan 2014: 236). “Graduate response” (“three strike”) laws have become crucial in this governmental cycle. New Zealand, South Korea, France and Britain have passed laws where internet service provider (ISP) users are warned of downloading infringements and ultimately disconnected from servers. The latest failure of legislatures and the courts to enforce rights in an era of abundance– and a global test case – is found in the 2010 Australian Federal Court hearing Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Pty Ltd. With thirty-three other appellants including multi-national music and film companies, Roadshow hoped to provide certainty for all audio-visual content providers in arguing that the host company’s knowledge of the existence of copying amounted to authorization. Both the Federal Court ruling (2011) and High Court appeal (2012) found that iiNet did not sanction downloading, was not required to act upon infringers and that knowledge of BitTorrent activity did not amount to illegal behaviour. This was an important affirmation that “there is no compulsion (under liberalism) on any person to protect the copyright of another” (Cvetkovski 2013: 34).
At the same time the recording sector has constantly sought public approval for a system whereby the costs are socialized, while the profits are substantially privatized;
it remains one of the few industries where all production costs must be recouped before the creator shares in the profits.3 The rise of crowdfunding (for example, Pledge, Kickstarter) offers an alternative to the standard recording contract on more favourable terms. Collective fanfinancing of albums enables the artist to retain rights to the master recording, involve their fans in production, and to pursue projects that that have no major company interest. Problems remain with distribution and pro-motion against major and indie releases, but it is an intriguing new mixture of social and economic capital.
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Globalization and governance
The often asserted globalization of cultural trade, production and consumption has to be treated with caution. Popular music practice is part of“new concentrations of power and ‘legitimacy’ that attach to global firms and markets” (Sassen 2008: 89) amidst a growing interdependence of technologies, institutions and communities. Yet this observation must also incorporate the many national and regional differences in the governance of cultural products and industries. Quota provisions for local music on national broadcasting systems, varying taxation regimes for audio-visual products, state censorship policies: all reveal the continuing role of the nation-state within “global”
music cultures. While supra-national bodies such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) engage in attempts to enforce global intellectual property standards, the ongoing battles by internet music services such as Pandora for a share of national territories further emphasizes the mixed nature of“borderless” theories.
The industry’s past exploitation of “world music” – the selective success of “exotic”
non-Western pop acts in Anglo-American and European markets– is a further indi-cator that claims to global frameworks are inevitably complicated. Substantial parts of the world market (Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, Spain, Japan) rely upon national repertoire for domestic sales. The truly global pop star (Adele, Psy, Pink) can still be produced in synchronization with media platforms. Boy band One Direction are a study in contemporary stardom: appearances in the UK’s The X Factorprogramme in 2010 led to a record number of hits across social media by fans and 8.1 million followers on Twitter by 2012 (IFPI 2013: 19).
As Western markets continue to recoup lost sales through digital platforms it is clear that the recording sector is turning its attention to developing nations for future growth. Brazil, Russia and India are targets as nations with emerging middle-class consumer populations (IFPI 2013: 24–26). The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)’s conditions for such growth are revealing: the estab-lishment of favourable copyright enforcement and the introduction of global digital/
streaming platforms (IFPI 2013: 24–26). Others contend that more realistic price settings, attuned to local wages and cultural value, are a more appropriate means of reducing illegal sales in developing markets (Karaganis 2011). This signals the new discursive terrain of imperialist/global practice, less concerned with how the few non-Western acts to extend beyond their home territories are consumed and interpreted, and more interested in how profits are established and dispersed. Evidence has emerged of increasing pressure placed upon developing countries to align with the global vision of intellectual property rights of the dominant copyright exporters (Robinson and Gibson 2011).4Proposals for Burma to become a member state of the WIPO, and adhere to Western copyright norms, for instance, would considerably change the domestic culture. The ability of “copy thachin” composers to match Burmese lyrics to Western hits would be eliminated by the moral and economic rights of the original publishers and composers (MacLachlan 2011: 129–34).
The ability to win intellectual property reform has been accompanied by other governmental change. Less defined boundaries between low and high culture have affected the foundational premises of subsidy, although high music forms (opera, classical) continue to receive the bulk of support through different combinations of
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“excellence” and market failure discourses. Established frameworks have become unsettled: classical music borrowing pop culture strategies (symphony orchestras performing Dr Who soundtracks); regulatory intervention in previously commercial domains (government strategies to stem market failure in live venue sectors). While this has not eliminated the discursive shorthand of the funding of“excellence” which is only ever defined against itself, it has opened new debates about aesthetic value.
Promises to deliver employment as part of growing creative and copyright indus-tries have seen popular music sectors gain increasing attention from local and national governments in the past two decades. This is particularly evident in the blizzard of urban regeneration schemes to either enhance or completely revitalize“downtown”
areas. Cities as diverse as Toronto, Glasgow, Berlin, Austin and Liverpool have constructed policies to direct music industry and city growth, as often as not building on specific cultural heritage as the foundational sites for particular music genres or acts. The preponderance of city music strategies is partly a testament to the success of the Florida (2002) thesis emphasizing the need for cities to attract creative talent to retain competitive advantage.
As some cities have realized, it is difficult to impose a singular template upon cities with diverse and unique cultural histories and heritage. Yet a live music policy has resonated with city policymakers due to the visceral effects of live performance upon scenes, subcultures and identities. Several concerns have emerged as popular music becomes part of social amelioration or regeneration policies. First, the types of music
As some cities have realized, it is difficult to impose a singular template upon cities with diverse and unique cultural histories and heritage. Yet a live music policy has resonated with city policymakers due to the visceral effects of live performance upon scenes, subcultures and identities. Several concerns have emerged as popular music becomes part of social amelioration or regeneration policies. First, the types of music