Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:00:40.620Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Success ratios, new music and sound recording copyright

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2017

Richard Osborne
Richard Osborne*
Affiliation:
Department of Performing Arts, Middlesex University, London, UK E-mail: R.Osborne@mdx.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article addresses the uses that record companies have made of two rhetorical tropes. The first is that only one in 10 artists succeed. The second is that they are investing in new music. These two notions have been combined to give the impression that record companies are taking risks both economically and aesthetically. They have been employed to justify the companies’ ownership of sound recording copyright and their system of exclusive, long-term recording contracts. More recently, the rhetoric has been employed to combat piracy, extend the term of sound recording copyright and account for the continuing usefulness of record companies. It is the argument of this article that investment in new music is not necessarily risk-taking; rather, it is the policies derived from risk-taking that provide the financial security of record companies.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , October 2017 , pp. 393 - 409
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Ashton, R. 2011. ‘Copyright term voted through in Brussels’, Music Week Online (12 September). http://www.musicweek.com Google Scholar
BPI. 2010. Digital Music Nation 2010 (London, BPI)Google Scholar
CA. 1911. Copyright Act, 1911. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1911/46/pdfs/ukpga_19110046_en.pdf Google Scholar
CA. 1956. Copyright Act, 1956. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1956/74/pdfs/ukpga_19560074_en.pdf.Google Scholar
CDPA. 1988. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (Norwich, The Stationary Office). http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/pdfs/ukpga_19880048_en.pdf Google Scholar
Chapple, S., and Garofalo, R. 1977. Rock ‘n’ Roll is Here to Pay: The History of Politics of the Music Industry (Chicago, IL, Nelson-Hall)Google Scholar
Cloonan, M. 2007. Popular Music and the State in the UK (Aldershot, Ashgate)Google Scholar
Cook, N. (2012): ‘Sound law and the scholar’, Popular Music and Society, 35/5, pp. 603–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CRRR. 1996. The Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 1996. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1996/2967/regulation/18/made Google Scholar
Dannen, F. 2003. Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business (London, Helter Skelter)Google Scholar
DCMS. 2000. Consumers Call the Tune: The Impact of New Technologies on the Music Industry (London, DCMS)Google Scholar
Denisoff, R. 1975. Solid Gold: The Popular Record Industry (New Brunswick, NJ, Transaction)Google Scholar
Elberse, A. 2014. Blockbusters: Why Big Hits – And Big Risks – Are the Future of the Entertainment Business (London, Faber & Faber)Google Scholar
Frank, R. H. and Cook, P. J.. 2010. The Winner-Take-All Society (London, Virgin Books)Google Scholar
Frith, S. 1974. ‘A year of singles in Britain’, in Rock File 2, ed. Gillett, C. (Frogmore, Granada), pp. 37–46 Google Scholar
Frith, S. 1978. The Sociology of Rock (London, Constable)Google Scholar
Frith, S. 2001. ‘The popular music industry’, in Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, ed. Frith, S., Straw, W. and Street, J. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 26–52 Google Scholar
Goodman, F. 1987. The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen and the Head-On Collision of Rock and Commerce (London, Jonathan Cape)Google Scholar
Gowers, A. 2006. Gowers Review of Intellectual Property (Norwich, HMSO)Google Scholar
Harkins, P. 2012. ‘Extending the term: the Gowers Review and the campaign to increase the length of copyright in sound recordings’, Popular Music and Society, 35/5, pp. 629–49Google Scholar
Harrison, A. 2011. Music: The Business: The Essential Guide to the Law and the Deals, 5th edn (London, Virgin)Google Scholar
Hesmondhalgh, D. 2013. The Cultural Industries, 3rd edn (London, Sage)Google Scholar
Hill, L. F. 1978. ‘An insight into the finances of the record industry’, Three Banks Review, 118, pp. 28–45 Google Scholar
Hirsch, P. 1971/2. ‘Processing fads and fashions’, American Journal of Sociology, 77/4, pp. 639–59Google Scholar
HL Deb. 30 November 1987. Vol 490 col 879–917. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1987/nov/30/copyright-designs-and-patents-bill-hl-1 Google Scholar
IFPI. 2010. Investing in Music: How Music Companies Discover, Develop and Promote Talent. http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/Investing_In_Music.pdf Google Scholar
IFPI. 2012a. Investing in Music: How Music Companies Discover, Nurture and Promote Talent. http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/Investing_In_Music.pdf Google Scholar
IFPI. 2012b. Recording Industry in Numbers 2011: The Definitive Source of Global Music Market Information (London, IFPI)Google Scholar
IFPI. 2014. Investing in Music: How Music Companies Discover, Nurture and Promote Talent. http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/Investing_In_Music.pdf Google Scholar
IFPI. 2015. Recording Industry in Numbers: The Recorded Music Market in 2014 (London, IFPI)Google Scholar
Jones, M. 1997. ‘Organising pop: why so few acts make pop music’, PhD thesis (University of Liverpool)Google Scholar
Jones, M. 2012. The Music Industries: From Consumption to Conception (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan)Google Scholar
Marshall, L. 2013. ‘The structural functions of stardom in the recording industry’, Popular Music and Society, 36/5, pp. 578–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martland, P. 2013. Recording History: The British Record Industry 1988–1931 (Lantham, Scarecrow Press)Google Scholar
Miège, B. 1989. The Capitalization of Cultural Production (New York, International General)Google Scholar
Melody Maker . 1966. ‘If the odds against having a hit are 10–1, what difference does a Beatle song make?’, 27 August, p. 8Google Scholar
MMC. 1994. The Supply of Recorded Music (London, HMSO)Google Scholar
Music Week . 2004. ‘The copyright issue which the industry must not ignore’, 24 July, pp. 6–7Google Scholar
Music Week . 2006. ‘Out of copyright: extend the term!’, 4 March, pp. 8–9Google Scholar
Music Week . 2011. ‘The road to extension’, 16 September, p. 5Google Scholar
Music Week . 2015. ‘Years of service’, 16 January, pp. 8–10Google Scholar
Napier-Bell, S. 2014. Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay: The Dodgy Business of Popular Music (London, Unbound)Google Scholar
Negus, K. 1992. Producing Pop: Culture and Conflict in the Music Industry (London, Arnold)Google Scholar
Negus, K. 1999. Music Genres and Corporate Cultures (London, Routledge)Google Scholar
Osborne, R. 2014. ‘The gold disc: one million pop fans can't be wrong’, Civilizations, 13, pp. 159–78Google Scholar
Osborne, R. 2015. ‘Community chest’, Pop Bothering Me. http://richardosbornevinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/community-chest.html Google Scholar
Reynolds, S. 2011. Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to its Own Past (London, Faber and Faber)Google Scholar
Rolontz, B. 1958a. ‘Too many disks spoil the broth’, Billboard, 21 July, pp. 1, 4Google Scholar
Rolontz, B. 1958b. ‘Package Output Spirals for Real Industry Headache’, Billboard, 11 August, pp. 1, 10Google Scholar
Sanjek, R., and Sanjek, D. 1991. American Popular Music Business in the 20th Century (New York, Oxford University Press)Google Scholar
Scorsese., M. 2016. Vinyl: Pilot (Paramount Television)Google Scholar
Smith, C. 1997. Creative Britain (London, Faber and Faber)Google Scholar
Smith, J. 2006. ‘John Smith supports extend the term!’, Music Week, 25 March, p. 8Google Scholar
Stahl, M. 2013. Unfree Masters: Recording Artists and the Politics of Work (Durham, NC, Duke University Press)Google Scholar
Stanley, B. 2011. ‘Copyright extension: good for Cliff and the Beatles, bad for the little guys?’, Guardian, 15 September. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/15/copyright-extension-cliffs-law-beatles Google Scholar
Toynbee, J. 2004. ‘Musicians’, in Music and Copyright, 2nd edn, ed. Frith, S. and Marshall, L. (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press), pp. 123–38Google Scholar

Cases

Beggars Banquet v Carlton Television (1993) E.M.L.R. 349Google Scholar
Century Communications v Mayfair Entertainment (1993) E.M.L.R. 335Google Scholar
Henry Hadaway v Pickwick Group (2015) EWHC 3407 (IPEC) WL 7566383Google Scholar
Robin Ray v Classic FM (1998) F.S.R. 622Google Scholar
Slater v Wimmer (2012) EWPCC 7 WL 488313Google Scholar