Music Industry Revenues Boom: Streaming Technology Set to Displace Record Labels - Essay Sample

Introduction

The music industry has recorded significant growth over the last decade. The total revenue generated from the music industry continues to increase with most of its revenue coming from streaming. Since three-quarters of the total revenue generated from the music industry comes from streaming, this has greatly contributed to the streaming technology basket. Although record labels still play a significant factor in the music industry today, they well become a thing of the past in the near future. While the music industry remains to be dynamic, it is therefore important to consider how its future looks like, the difference advances that are likely in the industry, and the different ethical issues managers should be concerned with when formulating their technology strategies.

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The Future for Music Industry

A key future for music industry in that the record labels will be a thing of the past. Major functions of the record labels include A&R marketing and distribution of music produced by their artists. Music labels played a role of discovering the next big musician and once they did their discovery, then they would invest time and resources on transforming the musician from a rookie musician to global sensation. Today, the A&R role of music labels has been done away with since the musicians are signed primarily based on their social media followers and their streaming numbers (Aziz par.8). While the musicians are marketing their music, they have adopted to the DIY approach hence eliminating the music labels. Today, anyone has the capability of distributing their music to different digital services without necessarily requiring the music labels.

Advances on the Music Industry

One of the key advancement is that VR will be a viable tool in the music industry. Not all fans will be willing to travel for longer distances to attend big music festivals. The virtual reality will be one of the biggest doors opened in the music industry. VR technology will help the fans who cannot attend to music concerts physically. The VR will serve such fans through giving them the tour stop they need. The technology will as well help in minimizing the hustle for secondary ticket markets (Baym, Lana, and Andrea 13). Another advancement that most likely to take place on the music industry is customizing the soundtracks for Netflix shows. This advancement will greatly help majority if the seasoned artists who love performing but hate the grind of touring. The increased size of venues will help the artists in holding consecutive night stands.

Ethical Issues that Managers Should be Concerned about as they Formulate their Technology Strategies

Managers need to consider the behaviour of people sharing the music files. This strategy will help in reducing the rate of pirated music files. Considering such ethical issues will be seen as something more akin to recording a song while its being played in any other media rather than stealing the CD from a record store. The managers need to protect the excessive scope of copyright protections. This approach will help in minimizing the costs associated with implementation of different technology strategies. The managers need to be concerned with different ethical issues associated with song writing and production (Sanitnarathorn 77). The ethical issue includes ensuring that the artists do not use the content of another artist and claim to be of their own.

Works Cited

Aziz, A. "10 Ways The Music Industry Will Change In 10 Years." Vibe, 29 Mar. 2019, www.vibe.com/photos/10-ways-music-industry-changes-10-years/cdu-csu-and-spd-present-new-coalition-contract.

Baym, Nancy, Lana Swartz, and Andrea Alarcon. "Convening Technologies: Blockchain and the Music Industry." International Journal of Communication (19328036) 13 (2019). http://search.ebscohost.com

Sanitnarathorn, Pannawit. "An Analysis of Music Fan Towards Music Streaming Purchase Intention of Thailand's Music Industry." Journal of Education and Training Studies 6.3a (2018): 78-87. http://redfame.com/journal/index.php/jets/article/view/3161