Abstract
Digital change has profoundly affected the cultural and creative industries, yet there seems to be different accounts on how to best interpret these changes. In such a context, the music industries may provide valuable insights on digital change that may prove important and transferable to other content industries. Based on two recent studies on the Norwegian music market, this chapter explores the extent to which music streaming has disrupted the structures and interrelationships of traditional and new intermediaries in the music economy. It will be argued that music streaming in many ways represents a continuation of past models which seem to amplify incumbents’ position instead of challenging and disrupting them. Furthermore, the economic and labour conditions for artists and musicians seem to become more complex and difficult.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for example, Barnett and Harvey’s (2015) special issue Recording industries, technologies and cultures in flux for a different discussions on these issues.
- 2.
This becomes very evident in my forthcoming text where I have analysed the structural dynamics internal in the music industries in a period of disruption and change (Nordgård forthcoming).
- 3.
The research build on a qualitative analysis of an annual Roundtable Conference in Kristiansand Norway, where key international stakeholders from the music industries have gathered for over 6 years to discuss the music industries’ difficulties adapting to a digital, online era. The conferences have been initiated and managed by Peter Jenner, Bendik Hofseth and Daniel Nordgård.
- 4.
This relates particularly to the Scandinavian markets, and especially Sweden and Norway, together with a handful of others as thoroughly described by Peter Tschmuck in his report (Tschmuck 2015).
- 5.
- 6.
The committee was chaired by Daniel Nordgård and consisted of Marte Thorsby (IFPI), Larry Bringsjord (FONO), Hege Marit Folkestad (Kirkelig Kulturverksted), Knut Schreiner (artist), Cecilie Torp-Holte (Circle Management), Christian Wadahl Uhlen (GramArt) and Renée Rasmussen (MFO-Norwegian Musician’s Union). The committe also got valuable input from Eivind Brydøy (Vox Artist), Joachim Haugland (Smalltown Supersound), Terje Pedersen (Warner Music), Jarle Savio (EMI), Inger Elise Mey og Willy Martinsen (TONO), Martin Grøndahl (GRAMO), Erik Brataas (Phonofile), Kjartan Slette (WIMP), Bugge Wesseltoft (artist og platedirektør), Rudolf Reim (Petroleum Records), Violet Road (Artist) and Jan Erik Haglund (Igloo Management).
- 7.
This does not, however, mean that they were pessimistic about the future, on the contrary, they just had little faith that on-demand streaming would be the economic driver for them.
- 8.
See, for example, Sinnreich (2016) for a representative example of such an optimistic approach on the streaming economy.
- 9.
Very recent evidence from the Norwegian market (IFPI 2016) suggests that this is changing, and that the Norwegian market share is on a rise. On the other hand, these developments coincide with a significant international success of some select artists within Electronic Dance Music (EDM) and may rather be evidence of Norwegian music successfully working with a genre, rather than evidence of changes in the laws and logics of the streaming economy.
- 10.
This is particularly evident in the failed efforts with creating a registry for meta-data like the initiative for a Global Repretoire Database.
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Nordgård, D. (2017). Assessing Music Streaming and Industry Disruptions. In: Meil, P., Kirov, V. (eds) Policy Implications of Virtual Work. Dynamics of Virtual Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52057-5_6
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