Adopting the rights-based model

Abstract

This paper identifies four economic tendencies that shaped the development of the international recorded music industry since 1945: the importance of endogenous sunk costs led to a quality race; the fact that marginal revenue equalled marginal profit led to extreme vertical integration; the quasi-public good character of musicits non-diminishability but partial excludabilityled to a sharply unequal income distribution among stars and the pioneering of new business models to transform consumer into producer surplus; and finally, the projectbased character of music production led to decentralised agglomeration. What can be characterised as rights-based multinationals emerged as a response to these forces. They married extreme vertical integration and a portfolio of A&R labels having limited economies of scale and scope, with a global distribution and marketing machine. This paper tries to explain how they emerged and how they can explain increasing industrial concentration in the face of sharp growth of the market and of musical diversity.A revised version of this paper will be forthcoming in Popular Music History

La pureza del talento

“…La franquicia internacional La Voz es un conglomerado de productos que incluye, además del programa televisivo, un videojuego, una edición de la competencia para los Cruceros Costa y Princess Cruises, una aplicación para karaoke, entre otros. Una de las hipótesis de trabajo sostiene que la teoría económica del modelo basado en derechos de autor 8 (Bakker, 2006;2012) de las multinacionales discográficas permite comprender los rasgos de las operaciones realizadas por los talent shows. Dichos rasgos involucran igual repertorio musical en diferentes ediciones del programa televisivo, mediante su nacionalización con uso de franquicia.…”

Paradox of celestial jukebox: Resurgence of market control

“…At the centre of the consolidation of the recording industry lay copyright, through which multinational firms' rights-based business was structured (Bakker 2012).…”

“…The major labels distributed large quantities of records, and their operations incurred large overheads. In a vertically integrated system where publishing, record labels, manufacturing and distribution units were integrated into their own business structure, they achieved economies of scale to reap profits from their own labels (Bakker 2012).…”

Soft power: the media industries in Britain since 1870

“…Here we will discuss the case of the recorded music industry in more detail. 8 From the 1890s, recording and playing back music through the phonograph or the gramophone, made music tradeable and created the modern music industry (Bakker 2006(Bakker , 2011b. The British Gramophone Company, which would later become part of EMI, was one of the industry's leading firms, and one of the largest firms in the world as well, manufacturing players and records in many countries (Jones 1985).…”