Expanded Prospectus:
"Potential Case Study -
Napster on Streaming and Piracy --> This goes along to "how are you adding to discussion." Napster was one of the very first streaming services. Being the one who practically started the streaming movement, it was also the one who sparked major uproar regarding copyright and piracy, something I kept overlooking because I was so focused on finding info on streaming and how it affects consumers, artists, and music companies. Hopefully Napster can shed some light on the war between Spotify and music companies.
Golden Records
I need to look deeper into AI and VR. I have made so much progress on all the topics relating to streaming and marketing, but I am definitely lacking on AI and VR. Those two are priorities."
The quote above was from my other post. After my presentation on Tuesday, I have realized more things I can look into. The plan is pretty much set, but I want to look more into holographic idols and look more into the music production technology (synthesizers) and how that has changed over the years. Besides this, I also have to look into copyright and piracy in general because that goes a lot into whether or not artists want their music to be shared even further, and what is possibly stopping them from letting that happen.
Assignment for the Annotated Bibliography:
After each source in the annotated bibliography, include two brief paragraphs.
The first paragraph should summarize the source’s main topics, ideas, claims, and evidence.
The second paragraph should assess the source’s persuasiveness and analyze how useful the source was to you, in terms of concepts, credible evidence, additional leads, and fresh angles, during your research and composing process.
In at least one of the two paragraphs there should be an identification of who the author(s) of the piece are.
1.
The Economics of Music
TSCHMUCK, PETER. The Economics of Music. Agenda Publishing, 2017. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv5cg90z.
Summary: This book was released in 2017, so it will include recent events regarding music and technology. I didn't choose specific chapters because I believe the book will have certain points that I want to make throughout the book. It provides a brief economic history of the music business, which will be useful when I mention how the business has grown throughout the years. The book mentions multiple topics, such as the music economy, sound recording, music labour markets, and the digital music business, which is big topic in this subject.
Assessment: This book breaks the book into nine chapters: "A Short Economic History of the Music Business," "Microeconomics of Music: Music as an Economic Good," "The Economics of Music Copyright," "Music Publishing," "Sound Recording," "Live Music," "Secondary Music Markets," "Music Labour Markets," and "Economics of the Digital Music Business." All of these chapters will be great for a lot of my project because I am focusing on the how technology has affected music and the industry, which is where the economy comes in. This book provides different examples from specific time periods or specific music services that sheds some fresh and credited insights on the respectful topics. I skimmed through all of the chapters, and every chapter provide background information or useful quotes that I need for my project.
2.
The Future of Music Careers
Millar, Michael W. “The Future of Music Careers.” College Music Symposium, 49/50, 2009, pp. 54–58. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41225230.
Summary: This source talks about the effects to technology on music. It goes into a discussion on how technology, culture, society, and marketing affects the music production, distribution, and education. They also talk how these effects will negatively and positively affect students who want to pursue a career in music. Additionally, they discuss how music schools or music classes can utilize technology and the current music society to prepare students for the music industry. They not the major changes in the music industry, especially by technology, and made a clear affect in the music economy: music production, marketing, distribution, networking, education, and research and access to the information.
Assessment: Millar not only talks about the music as an industry but also entrepreneurship, the role of technology, and preparing students for a potential career as artists or in the industry. I will most likely focus on the entrepreneurship, the industry, and the role of technology. The points that he mentioned for entrepreneurship will be useful to think about when I read other articles or sources regarding artists specifically. He talks about the major changes in the industry, and I think that they provide me an option on how I can organize my essay, but I can also find more information on those specific changes because they all more less lead back to technology. This source provides more of a direction than evidence for my paper, but the direction helps me a lot in what I can specifically focus on in my project.
3.
Swanson, K. (2013). A case study on spotify: Exploring perceptions of the music streaming service. MEIEA Journal, 13(1), 207-230. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1519295625?accountid=14496
Summary: This case study's main subject is Spotify, and it talks about how it is THE music streaming service that provides music from major and independent record labels to their consumers. They noted how since their establishment, consumers can either use their free services, which includes ads, or use their premium services, which includes no ads and access to additional features. The study also talked about how some major artists have spoken up regarding streaming and why they will not upload their music on the service, claiming that they are not being paid enough. Others support the service because its a less messy alternative to the copyright laws. They claim that Spotify and other streaming services are the bridge to the future of the music industry. They further discuss the other perspectives with the streaming services, such as music companies, artists, and consumers.
Assessment: This case study provides a big background about Spotify, the history of digitization of music, and how that affected the traditional income stream modeling. The case study talked about the pros and cons of these streaming services, looking at artists, consumers, publishers, distributors, and labels/companies, which is what a big portion of my project will be focusing on - the perspectives. They provide bar charts on what is used to consume music, how much people pay for the services, and looking at Spotify specifically, has their music-buying habits changed. Swanson later goes into talking about the economy and how Spotify has changed it as a lot of people now use streaming services rather than carry a Walkman or their iPods. Lastly, he talks about his recommendations regarding the music industry and the future, which will be useful to see if I am able to find other perspectives and their recommendations.
4.
Peoples, Glenn. “Digital Music Myths.” Billboard, vol. 124, no. 30, Sept. 2012, p. 8. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=79390262&site=ehost-live
Summary: This article specifically looks at the digital music industry in year 2012. They focus specifically on the myths, which the author further discusses how they are false. He talks about the subscription and streaming services; the option to either buy music or illegally download it; how investors do not and will not invest in digital music; and the traditional music listening methods still make more revenue than digital music listening methods.
Assessment: This source is very short and simple. I chose this as one of my sources because Peoples bring up important aspects of the music industry and music digitization. The four major myths helped me looked deeper into streaming services, the consumers' habits, distributors and investors decision and thoughts on streaming, and the old music-consuming methods. They brief examples for their explanations of why the myths are false, which led to me to research more into those examples, which end up being very helpful as knowledge based information or as actual evidence.
5.
Morris, Chris. “A History of Independent Labels.” Billboard, vol. 106, no. 44, Nov. 1994, p. 131. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9411161869&site=ehost-live.
Summary: This article goes in depth about how independent record labels came to be in the music industry and when they started to rise. They also discuss the concept of independent record labels and the reasons for the uprising trade for the independent record label in the industry. They also talk about the consolidation in the music industry during the 1960s, along with some success stories of independent record labels from then to when the article was written, which was 1994.
Assessment: Morris provides the history of indie record labels, and it provides brief reasons why they were created. He points out the characteristics of indie labels indirectly, but looking at how indie record labels grew over the years, I can pick up what they are. The time when indie record labels blew up was during specific musical periods, and I believe that that plays a role. He mentions specific artists and what they did during their time, which led me to figure out what their motives were as artists, such as simply money, expression, or creating music so people can share amongst themselves.
6.
Marshall, Lee. "‘Let's keep music special. F—Spotify’: on-demand streaming and the controversy over artist royalties." Creative Industries Journal 8.2 (2015): 177-189., https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17510694.2015.1096618?scroll=top&needAccess=true
Summary: This article talks about how music streaming services have expanded and risen significantly over the years. They are a main component to the music consumption and how they will be dominant in the future. Because of these streaming services, they are pushing the recording industry into a long and painful decline in their production. Spotify in particular has caused a lot of uproar with major music company artists and independent artists as they are not being paid with enough royalties. The article provides and discusses the controversy between Spotify and artists, particularly, independent labels and artists. They considered business models and how streaming affects them, looking into piracy and decreased record purchases. They conclude with how streaming services are pushing the independent musicians to rely on the concept of scaling that major record labels are mainly doing.
Assessment: Marshall provides the history of streaming services and the backlash they have gotten, which I can categorize into one of my three major groups. He goes into a discussion about royalties and how musical commodities have changed over the years, which is important because they pertains to the labels and the artists. He later talks about the economy of streaming services, and even though the topic is the same, he is talking about it in a different perspective with his own sources. He tries to incorporate the different perspectives in the music industry, which is very helpful for when I have to talk about them in my own words. He talks about something I did not think too much about, which would be Spotify and the mainstream industry, which would be the major music companies and their inability to change. He sheds light on how history has sort of repeated itself - from the CD era to the streaming services era.
7.
Sanitnarathorn, Pannawit. "An Analysis of Music Fan Towards Music Streaming Purchase Intention of Thailand's Music Industry.", https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1175643.pdf
Summary: Looking at a country other than America, the researchers of this article did a qualitative research with 10 executives in the music industry. They were testing to see if fan idolatry has influence on the overall decision to stream music. The researchers concluded that their interests in their artists has a direct influence on their willingness to stream music digitally. They concluded that the artist's passion for their fans is the main reason in the consumer's intent to stream and pay for subscription and digital music.
Assessment: The great thing about this is that its looking at another country's music industry. It really enforces that music digitization has brought the world closer - at least for the arts. They use charts and tables to visually show how often people are using streaming services and why they are willing to pay for to listen to unlimited music, which explains a lot (unlimited music. fixed price a month. Why not.) Bringing in a literature review, Sanitnarathorn breaks the fan's intentions down into various sections: purchase intention, attitude, idolatry, subject norms, and perceived behavioral control. They conducted an experiment with these variables, and it really opened my eyes on the different factors that can go into a simple decision of whether or not one wants to pay for a streaming service. This source would be a great contributor for the section where I talk about the consumers' perspectives on music streaming as it is clear that their intentions and desires are different from those of artists and labels.
8.
Summary: Jack Conte is one of the creators of Patreon, which is a membership platform that makes it easier for artists and creators to get paid. He talks about his experience with being a musician and uploading his music on YouTube. He notes how the streams do not and cannot be compared with the amount of money they are getting paid. He purposely compared the number of views he gets per video to the same exact number of people at a concert. Thus, he concludes his talk with the creation of Patreon and how that platform will pay the artists and the creators what they really should be getting, and how that will encourage future generations that the arts is also a career - not something that should be looked down upon.
Assessment: I like this TedxTalk because it puts the YouTube streaming services and their pay to the creators into perspectives. He uses his own experience, which obviously makes the topic more personal, but it also shows the audience a live example. I can use the facts that he mentioned in his speech into my project, and I think his Patreon project can be mentioned briefly in my project on how artists and creators can truly be paid as he has shown that YouTube does not pay their creators well. If YouTube does not pay their creators well, then it must be similar to other streaming services, like Spotify.
9.
https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_stewart_how_youtube_thinks_about_copyright/transcript?language=en
Summary: Margaret Stewart used to be an employee at Youtube (but she is now at Facebook). She was the head of user experience and she talked about how this video streaming site works with copyright holder and creators to create a unique system where everybody is happy. She talked about how if you simply upload a song, it is copyright infringement, but when YouTube collaborates with copyright holders and artists regarding their music, not only are the artists' music are being advertised and marketed but the YouTube users who upload content can use the songs and music to make their lives and videos more entertaining.
Assessment: I want to use Stewart's speech because she brings up piracy and how copyright holders and creators can meet in the middle to make everybody happy. The copyright topic has been an issue since the beginning and end of Napster and consumers' decision to illegally download music off the Internet. Technology has helped improve society in terms of convenience; however, it definitely caused backlash and uproar within multiple industries, music being one of the big ones. I can utilize Stewart's speech regarding the consumers and their desires to use their favorite artists' music in their videos. She talks briefly about the business side of copyright on YouTube and how letting creators use music can actually benefit them rather than put them at a disadvantage.
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