Lee Marshall

The 360 deal and the ‘new’ music industry

In the last few years the so-called ‘360 deal’, in which record labels receive a portion of income from revenue streams such as merchandising and publishing, have become increasingly common in the recording industry. However, the most publicised 360 deals have been made not by labels but by Live Nation, the world’s largest live music promoter, and some have argued that the emergence of the 360 deal reflects a shift in the balance of power within the music industry. This article provides an overview of 360 deals, discussing their emergence and overall structure as well as arguments for and against the 360 approach. It examines the broader implications of the 360 deal, concluding that the current situation of the major labels may not be quite as bad as is commonly perceived, and that the 360 approach may help them manage the challenges that they have faced in the last decade.

‘Let's keep music special. F—Spotify’: on-demand streaming and the controversy over artist royalties

On-demand streaming music services have expanded significantly in recent years. Services such as Spotify and Deezer are widely expected to become the dominant means of mass music consumption in the future and have been significant factors in helping recording industries in some countries arrest their long-term decline. The emergence of such services (especially the largest of them, Spotify) has caused controversy, however, with both major stars and smaller independent artists publicly criticising the low levels of royalty payments such services have thus far generated. This paper provides an overview of the controversy, concentrating on the criticisms of Spotify from independent labels and musicians. In such a rapidly moving sector, it is unwise to offer any definitive predictions and thus the purpose of this paper is to outline as clearly as possible the parameters of the current debate. To achieve this, it considers the business models associated with streaming music and their place within the contemporary recorded music ecosystem, most notably in relation to piracy and declining record purchases. It concludes with a consideration of streaming services in relation to the broader power dynamics of the recording industry suggesting that while services like Spotify may cause problems for independent musicians they rely upon a logic of scaling that correlates with the existing practices of the major record labels.

For and Against the Record Industry: an Introduction to Bootleg Collectors and Tape Traders

This paper offers an introduction to a distinct group of musical consumers: bootleg collectors and tape traders. It begins by defining the types of recording under discussion before outlining some of the discourse surrounding the collection of unauthorised recordings. Bootleg collectors and tape traders exist in a relationship of mutual distrust with the legitimate music industry: collectors view the industry as a barrier to musical experience while the industry views these collectors as at best a nuisance and at worst as having a detrimental impact upon official sales. The paper argues, however, that the relationship is in fact more complex. It shows that through an intensification of discourses of authenticity, collectors of unauthorised recordings actually provide ideological support for the recording industry, helping valorise musical commodities and thus maintain a dialectical relationship between collectors and the legitimate industry.

Representing popular music stardom on screen: the popular music biopic

Biopics of popular music stars have become quite popular in the first decade of the twenty-first century, with a number of box-office successes and movie awards in the genre. In seemingly offering a glimpse of the ‘real story’ behind the star persona, biopics contribute to individual star images but they also reproduce broader narratives of popular music stardom. This paper offers a brief description of some of the central tropes of popular music stardom before detailing how they are reproduced in four recent biopics. Further, the paper also discusses the popular music biopics ambiguous relationship to truth. On the one hand, the biopic must continually assert its truthfulness in order to gain the authority that a biopic needs to be believable and a source of audience pleasure. On the other hand, however, the biopic can never be a ‘real’ truth as it is constrained by both the conventions of cinematic realism and broader ideologies of popular music stardom. In its complicated merging of truth and fiction, we argue, the popular music biopic reflects the socially constructed nature of stardom more generally.

Beats and tweets: social media in the careers of independent musicians

While mainstream accounts of the impact of internet technologies on the music industry have emphasised the crisis of the major-dominated mainstream recording industry, a more optimistic discourse has also been promoted, emphasising the opportunities that the Internet creates for independent musicians. These same new technologies, it is argued, enable artists to reach new global audiences and engage with them in ways that can facilitate more stable, financially self-sustaining independent careers. Little research has been conducted, however, on the effect of new Internet technologies on the careers and practices of independent musicians. This article, part of a pilot project on the working experiences of independent musicians, examines how musicians signed to small labels in the South-west of England use social media in their careers and discusses their understanding of its benefits and disadvantages. It concludes that social media use is an essential tool in the arsenal of an independent musician, and does provide advantages for them, but significant disadvantages have also emerged and thus the benefits of social media for independent musicians have likely been overstated.

Media Rights and Intellectual Property

In order to gain a full understanding of how all forms of media are produced and utilized by individuals and audiences, it is essential to understand the different types of intellectual property rights (IPRs), their justification and their impact upon the practices of those involved in media production. IPRs affect what gets commissioned, broadcast, watched, hyperlinked and so on. Without IPRs, the entire structure of the industries that exist to create and distribute works of imagination would at least be radically different and, perhaps, non-existent. To many involved in intellectual property activism, the current ‘battle’ over the seemingly ceaseless expansion of IPRs will have a profound impact on all of our abilities to engage with culture. For example, as Haynes states, ‘How we engage and interact with the internet . . . is increasingly guided within certain parameters, many of which we remain blissfully unaware of’ (p. 114). Unfortunately, however, too few people appreciate this significance, including those involved in the academic study of culture. The majority of texts on the topic are targeted at those in law and there are few works that emphasize the cultural importance of IPRs or just how interesting some of the philosophical questions that the politics of IPRs can raise (just what is the ontological status of the voice of someone who just happens to sound like a popular singer?). For these reasons, the existence of Richard Haynes’s book, Media Rights and Intellectual Property, is a blessing. Haynes clearly states at the outset that the book ‘is not a book on legal practice and the law per se. Rather, it is about law and how it shapes certain aspects of the media industry’ (p. 4). Through an overview of the key philosophical issues and a series of case studies from different media industries, Haynes aims to give non-law students an overview of the role that IPRs play. Unfortunately, however, while the variety of case studies usefully displays the ways in which different industries operate, the book has a number of weaknesses that mean it does not achieve its aim of ‘fill[ing] the need for a clear and concise guide for media students not versed in the finer details of media law’ (back cover). The first problem with the book concerns the early discussion of the theoretical issues raised by intellectual property. The first substantive chapter is titled ‘Intellectual Property Rights and the Media’ but it is too short for its stated purpose, resulting in a confusing density that relies too much on outlining recent legislation in IPRs. These treaties and laws are extremely important, but without a sufficient introduction to the issues at stake, and how to understand them culturally, then details of the EU Copyright Directive or the DMCA become a complex legal list. There is no clear discussion of the idea of copyright as a bargain, or of authorship and/or moral rights, or even of fair use, even though these issues are important for understanding the case studies later in the book. There is no real acknowledgement that there are different types of user of intellectual property (individual consumers, other media companies) or the ramifications this might have. Significantly, given the title of the chapter, there is no explanation of any form of IPR other than copyright, even though patents, trademarks, design rights, celebrity R E V I E W S