rathmoremedia1314: April 2014

Fight like apes use crowdfunding for new album, check out rewards offered for funding http://www.fundit.ie/project/fight-like-apes-new-album-fundraiser

Discuss the issues raised by media ownership in the production and exchange of media products in the music industry.

Check out the Bandcamp page here. Remember this is example of crowdfunding and allowing fans to connect better with artists, and also artists will get more of the money for their products.

Bandcamp empowers artists

We provide a rock-solid platform for selling your music and merchandise to your fans, and we bring your music to a thriving community of enlightened listeners who understand that the best way to support the artists they love is by directly giving them money.

To date, artists have made $38 million using Bandcamp,

and $2.2 million in the last 30 days alone.

Sign up now

Yep, it’s free.

So Easy Even Your Drummer Could…

Well, perhaps not that easy but still, pretty easy. Bandcamp provides a professional home on the web for your music. It’s straightforward to set up, you get your own bandcamp.com address, unlimited storage, and…

High-Quality Audio

An MP3 may be fine for most, but a vocal minority of fans demand your tunes in high-quality formats like FLAC and Apple Lossless, and obscure ones like Ogg Vorbis (gesundheit). We say more power to ’em, but we also think it’s crazy to expect an artist to create and maintain all those choices. So on Bandcamp, you upload a single, lossless audio file (such as a WAV or AIFF), and we lovingly convert it to every conceivable format your fans could possibly desire. more info

Mobile Mobile Mobile

Bandcamp sites work and look great on mobile devices. Everything is optimized for the smaller screen and touch interface, so your albums look amazing, fans can browse your merch with ease, and the checkout flow is fast and intuitive. more info

Flexible Pricing

Bandcamp gives you the flexibility to charge whatever price for your music you see fit (including zero), or let fans name their own price, with the minimum chosen by you. It’s entirely in your hands (as it of course should be).

Sell Physical and Digital, Side-by-Side

You can sell both your physical merchandise and your digital music from Bandcamp, and better yet, you can sell them together. So, for example, you can easily create a vinyl + digital package where your fans get the music immediately, without having to wait for their record. And if you work with a fulfillment partner, they can see all your merch orders at a glance, mark orders as shipped, search for orders, filter orders by date and shipped status, or generate reports. more info

We Don’t Save You Money,
We Make You Money

Bandcamp’s community features – things like fan accounts, artist recommendations, Discover, tag pages and the weekly show – drive tens of thousands of sales each month, far surpassing our modest fees.

Real-time Statistics

Bandcamp’s rich, up-to-the-instant stats system reveals who’s linking to you, where your music is embedded, which tracks are most and least popular, what’s being downloaded and when, which search engine terms are sending traffic your way, and what you ate for breakfast on January 4th, 1993 (Special K with banana). Use the data for the pure, ego-stroking thrill of it all, or to jump in the conversation and stoke the fires of your fandom.

Gorgeous, Clean Players

Bandcamp gives you, your fans and the press a bevy of sharp, customizable music players to embed across the web. They’re simple, effective, and completely focussed on driving fans back to your site.

Your site will be this beautiful, no more, no less

See how these would apply to the music industry?

Horizontal Integration

Media terms

Media critics, such as Robert McChesney, have noted that the current trend within the entertainment industry has been toward the increased concentration of media ownership into the hands of a smaller number of transmedia and transnational conglomerates.^[1] Media is seen to amass in centre where wealthy individuals have the ability to purchase such ventures (e.g. Rupert Murdoch).

Horizontal integration, that is the consolidation of holdings across multiple industries, has displaced the old vertical integration of the Hollywood studios. The idea of owning many media outlets, which run almost the same content, is considered to be very productive, since it requires only minor changes of format and information to use in multiple media forms. For example, within a conglomerate, the content used in broadcasting television would be used in broadcasting radio as well, or the content used in hard copy of the newspaper would also be used in online newspaper website.

What emerged are new strategies of content development and distribution designed to increase the “synergy’ between the different divisions of the same company. Studios seek content that can move fluidly across media channels.

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Vertical Integration

Media industry [edit]

From the early 1920s through the early 1950s, the American motion picture had evolved into an industry controlled by a few companies, a condition known as a "mature oligopoly". The film industry was led by eight major film studios. The most powerful of these studios were the fully integrated Big Five studios: MGM, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, and RKO. These studios not only produced and distributed films, but also operated their own movie theaters. Meanwhile, the Little Three studios: Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, and United Artists produced and distributed feature films, but did not own their own theaters.

The issue of vertical integration (also known as common ownership) has been a main focus of policy makers because of the possibility of anti-competitive behaviors affiliated with market influence. For example, in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., the Supreme Court ordered the five vertically integrated studios to sell off their theater chains and all trade practices were prohibited (United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 1948).^[11]The prevalence of vertical integration wholly predetermined the relationships between both studios and networks^{[clarification needed]} and modified criteria in financing. Networks began arranging content initiated by commonly owned studios and stipulated a portion of the syndication revenues in order for a show to gain a spot on the schedule if it was produced by a studio without common ownership.^[12] In response, the studios fundamentally changed the way they made movies and did business. Lacking the financial resources and contract talent they once controlled, the studios now relied on independent producers supplying some portion of the budget in exchange for distribution rights. ^[13]

Certain media conglomerates may, in a similar manner, own television broadcasters (either over-the-air or on cable), production companies that produce content for their networks, and also own the services that distribute their content to viewers (such as television and internet service providers). Bell Canada, Comcast, and BSkyB are vertically integrated in such a manner—operating media subsidiaries (in the case of Bell and Comcast, Bell Mediaand NBCUniversal respectively), and also both provide "triple play" services of television, internet, and phone service in some markets (such as Bell TV/Bell Internet, Xfinity, and Sky's satellite TV services).

Apple [edit]

Apple Inc. have been listed as an example of vertical integration, specifically with many elements of the ecosystem for the iPhone and iPad, where they control the processor, the hardware and the software.^[14] Hardware itself is not typically manufactured by Apple, but is outsourced to contract manufacturers such as Foxconn or Pegatron who manufacture Apple's branded products to their specifications. Apple retail stores sell its own hardware, software and services directly to consumers.

Problems and benefits [edit]

There are internal and external (e.g. society-wide) gains and losses due to vertical integration. They will differ according to the state of technology in the industries involved, roughly corresponding to the stages of the industry lifecycle.

Static technology [edit]

This is the simplest case, where the gains and losses have been studied extensively.

Internal gains [edit]

Lower transaction costs
Synchronization of supply and demand along the chain of products
Lower uncertainty and higher investment
Ability to monopolize market throughout the chain by market foreclosure
Strategic independence (especially if important inputs are rare or highly volatile in price, such as REM)

Internal losses [edit]

Higher coordination costs
Higher monetary and organizational costs of switching to other suppliers/buyers
Weaker motivation for good performance at the start of the supply chain since sales are guaranteed and poor quality may be blended into other inputs at later manufacturing stages

Benefits to society [edit]

Better opportunities for investment growth through reduced uncertainty
Local companies are better positioned against foreign competition

Losses to society [edit]

Monopolization of markets
Rigid organizational structure, having much the same shortcomings as the socialist economy

Music industry ownership from Sarah media film

Media Ownership in the Music Industry 2013 from Liz Davies

Ownership from ctrmedia

The issues raised by media ownership

read the following articles regarding EMI's take over bid

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15697973

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/09/universal-takeover-emi-threaten-market

THE BIG THREE:
- Identify a variety of record labels
- Research ownership - who owns the labels
- Conglomerates vs Independents
- Explain the differences
- Give definitions of the terminology: S&C give examples of each
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Conglomerate
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Vertical integration
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Horizontal integration
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Oligolpoly
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What do the following programmes / article mean to you personally (the Net Police programme  & The Digital Economy: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/02/censorship-inseperable-from-surveillance
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- reflect on your own consumption
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What effects do you think they will have on the Music Industry? 
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Media Ownership 360 deal

Madonna signed a 360 deal with Live Nation

Robbie Williams signed a 360 deal with EMI

Consider the changes over the years following the introduction to digital technology & the Internet, what challenges are there regarding ownership?

2) Discuss the issues raised by media ownership upon the diversity of media products and services available to audiences in the contemporary media area you have studied

The ownership of music has become a blurred subject in the digital era with copies of songs being immediately available to consume through Web 2.0 technology, it has never been easier to illegally obtain music and not pay homage to the rightful owners of the music.
Sony Corporation is a multi-media conglomerate, owning 33% of the global market share in the music industry alone. Because of this and being one of the ‘Big Three’ music distributors (along with Universal and Warner), they have the money and industry respect, to represent a wide ranging variety of bands and artists. They, as the label, get fees and band/artist revenue, so it could be argued that they claim the ownership of any material produced by their bands and artists.
As a conglomerate they converged and bought many smaller labels that specify in certain genres, such as deconstruction, Sony’s dance/electro label and Columbia, Sony’s indie/rock label. With this in mind, if it is Sony’s sub-companies that manage and control the artist and oversee distribution and marketing then surely they are the true owners of the produced music. It is important to note that bands and artists represented by big conglomerates such as Sony are majorly profitable as they have the big financial backing, however, they do not receive as big a percentage of profits than a lesser known independently backed band/artist.
As such a big company, Sony are able to create methods of reducing privacy and claiming ownership over produced music. They created synergy with video streaming website YouTube to cut down on illegal/unauthorised distribution of their artist’s material and said usage is immediately blocked and notified. Sony are also the forerunners of a new distribution concept ‘instant pop’. This is when music is immediately available to download as soon as it has received air time. This caters for fragmented audiences who are part of the immediate consumption culture. Instead if of having to turn to torrents and illegal downloads of newly released songs in order to obtain a copy, the music is available legally. In doing this the audience is respecting the rightful ownership of the songs to the artist and label. The first example of ‘instant pop’ is Jessie J who is managed by Sony.
A Wolf at Your Door is at a UK based indie/rock independent record label. As a small part of the 30% of global market share that independent record labels take within the overall music industry they do not have the financial or reputational comfort in the way that Sony does.
When talking to the label manager, Ian Dickinson, he said that because of the easily accessible illegal copies of music, A Wolf at Your Door suffers. As rightful owners of the music, along with the artists, they are having to resort to highly priced gigs and band/label merchandise in order to make a profit or even break even.
Last year, A Wolf at Your Door had to sell the ownership rights of one of their most profitable bands, Deaf Hevana to Sony. This exchange and recognised synergy

between Sony and smaller independent labels is beneficial to both companies who will both receive profit from this deal.
A Wolf at Your Door caters to a fragmented audience by mainly distributing digital through there own website or synergy links with distribution platforms such as iTunes and Spotify. In doing this, they can cater for a global audience, which was near impossible for independent companies decades ago who would have to pay physical distribution fees for CDs, tapes and vinyl. The readily available and more affordable digital software and technologies have been most beneficial to independent labels and have changed the way the audience consumes music. This is evident through the $16.8 million rise in digital download sales in 2010 alone.
Overall, it is clear to see that the rightful ownership of music has been blurred in the digital era. This is damaging to all companies within the industry be it major (like Sony) or independent (such as A Wolf at Your Door). Now that audiences have many ways of obtaining music it is harder to control the profit and rightful fees that belong to labels and artists. We are no longer all consuming music purely from fixed time radio broadcasts that have to pay PRS fees to labels. So the digital era has warped our consumption of media. Be this beneficial for independent labels but also damaging to all in the industry. As Bob Dylan once said “The Times They Are A Changing”
This is a confident response, making a clear argument throughout and taking a particular slant on the question which is sustained to the end. The contrast between Sony and a UK indie is well integrated and the answer situates the workings of the industry very clearly within the digital era. Examples are apposite. Overall, all three elements are worthy of level 4.
Total Marks (44)