Sony BMG owns many music distribution companies, so all music sales revenue goes directly back to Sony. Digital music sales have greatly increased the music industry's income since 2004. However, illegal music downloading has led to a large decrease in music sales from 2007-2009. Kate Nash advocates for musicians' ownership rights and fair compensation from digital distributors like Google that profit from their music.

1. DISTRIBUTION TECHNIQUES
Sony BMG does not have a direct way of buying CD‟s and downloads
from their website. However you are able to purchase download from the
iTunes website and a small fee. To purchase the Albums and Singles
you can also use Amazon and Play.com.
For this research we will look into the band owned by Song BMG, „Kings
of Leon‟. They won the award best album of the year by iTunes in 2009.
The music that they make is then sold on the internet and also in stores
such as Zavvi.
Sony BMG owns all of its distribution and so they don‟t have to give any
money to other businesses as they own them all. Sony own at least 14
other companies that are associated with Sony, so the music that is
produced goes to the listener and the money straight back to Sony.
Sony does not have to give away money to the owners because they are
the owner so all money made comes straight back to them.
Here is a graph showing the countries that have the most music sales:
Britain clearly has the
highest rate of income
in the music industry.
Secondly Japan which
has the major
companies such as
Sony. (2006)
What is immediately strange is the fact America is forth on the top
spenders? This is because Britain‟s music listeners are happy to spend
more on their music. Also the currencies are different and so the prices
vary with various countries.

2. Digital Music has become a huge part of the music industry as it is far
easier to purchase music over the internet without having to go to the
shop and pay more the album. This is a far more convenient service and
is used by most age groups. This graph shows the digital sales of the
sales increase since the creation of digital music from 2004 - 2007:
By this it is very clear that it was making the Industry a huge amount of
income.
The following graph shows the decrease in music sales as illegal
downloading has increased from 2007 – 2009:
There has been a
large decrease in
the music sales
due to the illegal
downloading
spreading.

3. Case Study
Nash started her career in 2005. After several gigs, she uploaded her
music to MySpace. Her songs were released through Moshi Moshi
records a small independent label from London.
Kate Nash is apart of Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), a coalition of
working musicians who aim to strike a new bargain with the companies
that distribute and sell their music in the digital age. The coalition formed
at a time of a crisis, when the shape of the music industry changed
dramatically around 46 years ago. Under the old model, musicians such
as The Beatles signed away their control of ownerships right with
Parlophone records that gave the band no advances and earned them
one penny for every double-sided disc they sold. So now musicians such
as Radiohead are leaving Parlophone records and releasing their latest
records on there own website. Radiohead guitarist Ed O‟Brien believes
new technology can be used as a bargaining tool by artists: „The reason
we can do all this is because the internet and digital technology have
changed the landscape in the music industry, which basically means
people can now release their music without a middleman, without a
record company.‟ The coalition aims to use a collective voice to retain
music ownership, negotiate with digital distributors and rewrite
unfavourable copyright laws. A key issue for the FAC is receiving
compensation for music distributed freely to consumers through
companies such as Google and MySpace. Artists are not consulted in
deals their labels and publishers strike with these digital partners. Kate
Nash emphasizes that the enemy is not the young consumers, but
parasitical companies: „If someone is just listening to my music I can‟t
punish them for that. But if organisations such as Google and MySpace
are making large profits they can pay for it.‟ Available from most online

4. stores, record shops and supermarket's at around
£8.99 - £9.99.... an excellent buy
Other case study
Beyonce her “I Am Sasha Fierce” being quadruple
platinum having sold in excess of 1,200,000 records
and 2 million singles. You can get her music from
ITunes, her official website, Amazon and play.com all
legal however you can also download her music for
free illegally from The pirate bay, Lime wire, YouTube.
Sony Entertainment has shut down Beyonce's official YouTube site.
Congrats to Sony Entertainment for wisely spending its legal dollars and
working on behalf of its artist .If the content belongs to Sony (although
performed by Beyonce) then she has no right to distribute it... in more
extreme cases some artists have to actually pay to just perform their
own songs.
Ways of purchasing
- Internet shops like Amazon
- Shops in towns
- Downloads from the internet
This graph shows the percentage of people that use various
ways to get their music and those who choose not to.