The term ‘music industry’ is a misnomer that distorts the reality of the situation between the recording industry and musicians. The misconception comes from the fact that the ‘music industry’ is not one industry, rather it is several independent industries.

This is an important distinction because too often the “crisis in the recording industry” (associated with declining sales due to piracy) is also presented as being the same crisis for musicians. An analysis of the relationship between musicians and the recording industry (documented in my MA thesis) challenges this assumption by illustrating how musicians are benefiting from piracy and other types of free content online.

Misuse of the Term ‘Music Industry’
Essentially a misuse of the term ‘music industry’ can be used to distort the reality of the situation. For example,

• The RIAA occasionally misrepresents itself as being a figurehead for the entire “music industry” when in actuality it is a trade organization for a group of labels in recording industry.
• Peter Jamieson, chair of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), attempted to speak about the “The Music Industry Crisis” at an industry convention in the UK in September 2003, but instead outlined issues particular to the recording sector.

In the media, long-winded articles documenting the decline and future of the “music industry” have been a recurring theme over the past few years. Almost every major news outlet including the NY Times, MTV and Billboard Magazine have weighed in on the topic:

• In the aftermath of the Napster shut down Wired Magazine ran an article “The Year the Music Died” predicting that in five to ten years file sharing will have completely torn apart the “music industry”.
• Nearing the close of 2007, MTV.com began a three part story that began with the article “The Year the Music Industry Broke” and asked, “If The Old Music Business Is Dead, What’s Next?”
• In 2007 Rolling Stone Magazine published “The Record Industry’s Decline” highlighting “how it all went wrong” and the “future of the music business”.
• Times Online in 2007 wrote, “The Day The Music Industry Died: There is no money in recorded music any more, that’s why bands are now giving it away. ”

Common throughout all of these articles is the conflation of the term ‘music industry’ with ‘music business’ and ‘record industry’. Surprisingly the same ambiguities are present in the university texts and academic reports. Considering the abundance of writing on the subject it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to how the term “music industry” is being (ab)used. For instance, when a headline declares, “Piracy is Killing the Music Industry” or “The Music Industry Sues 482 More Computer Users” it oversimplifies the issue by assuming that the music industry is the only music economy.

The ‘Music Industries’
A paper entitled “Rethinking the Music Industry” published by John Williamson and Martin Cloonan has helped demystify the media’s use of the term ‘music industry’. They argue that the concept of a single music industry is inappropriate for understanding the economics and politics that surround music. Therefore, they suggest, “It is necessary to use the term music industries (plural).”

What are the ‘music industries’? At the most fundamental level the music industries encompass a wide-range of individuals, organizations and corporations that sell compositions, recordings and live performances of music. Because a clear list has not been adopted, there are many inconsistencies in this model.

I recommend using the term ‘music industries’ when speaking generally about more than one of the sectors, and referencing their individual names when speaking about a particular sector (e.g. artists, the recording industry, the live music industry, the music publishing industry, the creative industries etc).