Year: 2019
Type: editorial
Abstract: The papers contained in this section highlight several key issues for marketing and music that go beyond the well-known applications of digital reproduction in the industry.Consequently, in this introduction we aim to develop and discuss some of the themes that are most important for advancing our understanding of the relationship between music and marketing.The music business, particularly the recording industry, has undergone radical change in recent years, which is often attributed to digitisation.In the period between Napster (the peer-to-peer filesharing network) gaining critical mass of usage (1999)(2000) and legal streaming becoming a mainstream consumer practice (approximately 2014-2015) the recording industry declined in sales by approximately 47% (The Recording Industry of Association of America, 2015).Despite this, the overall trend is upward.In 2017 the global record industry grew by over 8% (IFPI, 2018).Of course these figures are often disputed because technical, delivery and consumption changes make it difficult to compile figures which for example equate each pirated song to a sale (Cusic et al., 2005), or more recently any song that is streamed freely to a digital or physical sale (Weijters et al., 2014).The precise figures are not all that matters however, -it is the narrative and those groups that such narratives serve that are important to recognise.It is certainly not serving the majority of artists judging by the continuing problems they encounter regarding royalties (Marshall, 2015) and the lack of attention that this issue receives in wider public debate.
Source: European Journal of Marketing
Authors: Gary Sinclair, Mike Saren
Institutions: Dublin City University, University of Leicester
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4232801632