Copyright and global music industry

Figure 1 presents the current structure or value chain of the music market [11]. This illustration explains simply how music moves a creative artist to its final destination, a consumer. Musicians typically come with a sample of their music to a music publisher or an artist & repertoire (A&R) manager of a record company. If this initial 'gate keeper' find the music promising, negotiations start [12]. A contract is signed with a music publisher. …

…to changes in copyright. Now, similar discussions are under way. It would now seem that a crossroads has been reached, as online music revenues are expected to increase from $179 million in 1998 to $2,800 million in 2002 [26], or eight percent of the total industry revenues according to Jupiter, an online consultant [27]. Incremental changes to save the present system of copyrights - and thereby avoid fundamental changes to the structure of the music industry - may no longer do.