The document discusses the music industry and who controls it. It notes that major companies control around 75-90% of the global and US music industries respectively. The four main roles of music labels are talent acquisition, contractual agreements with artists, marketing and promotion of releases, and copyright enforcement. Music labels sell various physical and digital products including CDs, vinyls, downloads, streams and more to generate over $18 billion in global revenue annually from a market of over 30,000 new releases each year.

1. THE MUSIC
INDUSTRY
NOTES ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND WHO
HAS CONTROL.

2. THE US MUSIC INDUSTRY
• There are 30,000 new music releases every year
• There exist 300+ record labels
• The biggest centres of production are New York, Los Angeles and Nashville
• Revenue: 18 billion dollars made globally by the music industry in 2008 (5bn is US music industry
revenue)
• Major companies control approximately 75% of the music industry and around 80-90% of the US music
industry

3. FOUR MAIN ROLES OF A MUSIC LABEL
• Talent acquisition– this is the responsibility of record labels for finding new and original artists and
bands
• Contractual agreements with artists and managers
• Marketing and promotion of existing releases and products – planning marketing strategies, continuing
marketing work on product, working with other companies in some cases (synergy, cross media
convergence)
• Copyright enforcement – including working with various music distribution companies to reduce
copyright infringement

4. WHAT PRODUCTS ARE SOLD IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
• CDs
• Vinyls
• Merchandise
• Music Videos
• DVDs
• Digital Downloads
• Apps and Games
• Digital Advertisements
• Ringtones
• Streams

5. THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

6. THE LABELS • The Majors – dominate the market, major distribution, high levels of
funding
• Independents – smaller companies, less ability and power than the
majors
• Sub-labels and imprints – separate companies or divisions owned or
distributed by the major labels
• Specialty labels – non-traditional distribution, focus heavily on non-
mainstream audiences