HISTORY OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

The Music Industry began in the 18^th century when formal composition became popular and music was printed with support from the churches. It became an industry because people bought the printed music and because musical artists began to seek commercial opportunities to market their music and performances to the general public. For example when Mozart died his wife made money through a series of memorial concerts and by selling his manuscripts. She also created a biography to sell on his behalf. In the 19^th century the music sheet music publishers dominated industry.

The recording of musical performances started in the late 1880’s, however, the onset of widespread radio broadcasting started in the 1920’s, changing the way we heard music forever.

Opera houses, concert halls, and clubs continued to produce music and perform live, but the power of radio allowed obscure bands to become popular on a nationwide and sometimes worldwide scale.

The "record industry" eventually replaced the sheet music publishers as the industry's largest force. A mass of record labels came and went. Some note-worthy labels of the earlier decades include the Columbia Records, Decca Records and many others.

 The present music industry developed around the middle of the 20th century, when records had replaced sheet music as the largest player in the music business: in the commercial world, people began speaking of "the recording industry" as a substitute of "the music industry".

Along with their abundant businesses, a large majority of this market for recorded music is controlled by three major corporate labels: the French-owned Universal Music Group, the Japanese-owned Sony Music Entertainment and the US-owned Warner Music Group.

The music industry has been undertaking radical changes since the arrival of widespread digital distribution of music. A noticeable display of this is total music sales: since 2000, sales of recorded music have dropped off significantly while live music has increased in prominence.

Rise of the Digital Distribution

Despite increasing digital sales, the largest record labels have all reported a sizeable deterioration in overall proceeds from sales of recorded music to customers in the first decade of the 21st century.

In response to the growth of extensive illegal file sharing, the record industry took destructive legal action. In 2001 it succeeded in shutting down Napster, and threatened legal action against thousands of individuals who participated. However, this failed to slow the decline in revenue and proved a public-relations disaster.