Reviews

Abstract

The popular music industry, as is well known, has been extremely vocal concerning what it claims are its declining sales. Through its trade group, the RIAA, the industry has for the last several years been publicly laying the blame for this decline almost entirely at the feet of individual music fans. These fans, it argues, are infringing upon the industry's monopoly control over the right to copy and distribute music (to which record labels hold title) by sharing music over the Internet. This, they argue, allows people to enjoy music without paying for it, which, the argument continues, is illegal and threatens the survival of the industry.David J. Park's timely new book Conglomerate Rock takes aim at the music industry at this critical historical juncture, focusing on changes in the ways in which the world's largest record companies produce and market popular music. In it, Park explores new strategies by which these companies seek to protect and increase the value of their investments. Drawing data from print and electronic trade publications such as Billboard and Music Industry News Network (supplemented by several interviews with industry participants), Park demonstrates that, contrary to industry complaints, the recent decline in music sales is not mainly due to Internet file sharing by fans. Rather, the decline -which has been used to support claims on government for unprecedented advances in copyright control and enforcement and to legitimate absurdly punishing lawsuits aimed at consumers -has to do with a number of other factors, including the end of CD replacement (of vinyl LPs and cassettes) and new forms of music selling that are not counted as normal sales. Conglomerate Rock offers detailed discussions of legal, technological and marketing strategies employed by the industry to protect their failing profits, including the production and promotion of new playback technologies that will embed the industry's desire to control music in the playback devices themselves (known as 'digital rights management'), as well as the extension of music marketing and commercialisation into a range of new and existing media and commercial spaces. Park's overall point is that the music industry, faced with a range of challenges to its profit margins and legitimacy, seeks to 'divide' music by diversifying channels of marketing and distribution, extending copyright owners' control over how music may be used by its purchasers, thereby 'conquering' wallets -increasing the number of Contributor detailsMatt Stahl is an Assistant Professor of Media and Communication at Muhlenberg College. His research focuses on the politics of cultural production and their representation in law and popular culture. Contact: