Music Industry Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property It is important to note, from the onset, that revenues for the U.S. recorded music industry have more than halved since the late 1990s (Figure 1.0). In essence, what has often been blamed for the falling revenues is the online music revolution (Mezei, 2018). It is instructive to note that in recent times, streaming services have seen their paid subscriptions go up significantly, with 2016 having been a particularly good year for the said services. These include, but they are not limited to, Tidal, Apple Music, as well as Spotify.

Thanks to such growth in streaming services, quite a number of players have in the past expressed their intention to try their hand in this specific market. These include new entrants to this spot, like Amazon. According to the Recording Industry Association of America - RIAA (2017), in the year 2016, there was an 11.4% growth in U.S. recorded music revenues. Essentially, “the primary driver of that growth was a doubling of paid streaming music subscriptions which helped the American music business experience its biggest gain since 1998” (RIAA, 2017).

It would, therefore, be fair to say that the U.S. market experienced maturation of streaming last year. As RIAA figures show, the retail sector experienced more growth than the whole sale sector in the years 2014, 2015, 2016 (RIAA 2017). Figure 1.0 Source: Recording Industry Association of America – RIAA Revenue Statistics from 1990 to 2016 As per the figure above, it is clear that while CD album and MC album were the dominant force in the market in the early 1990s, the latter fizzled out in the early 2000s.

CD album has largely driven sales over the last two decades but as can be seen, from Figure 1.0 above, sales have declined in recent years. It is also clear from the figure that streaming is likely to take over the market going forward. This is more so the case given that as per the chart info, this is the only source that has not experienced decline within the last two 5 years. In the final analysis, it is important to note that the U.S.

remains the world’s largest market for music. CD sales are likely to drop, while digital downloads could cool as far as further increase is concerned. Also, one interesting aspect of this market is the fact that at a time when CD sales were dropping, vinyl sales were up. Though curious, it should be noted that an increase in the sales of vinyl in this day and age could largely be attributed to collectors.

With the internet becoming faster and even more accessible across the globe, streaming could gain even more popularity going forward (Weissman, 2017).