Music corporations

This post is based on "The structure of international music flows using network analysis" published by Sage in New Media & Society 12 (3) 2010 and contributing authors were Shin-II Moon, George A. Barnett, and Yon Soo Lim.

Music truly does transcend national boundaries, especially now with easy distribution though the internet. This study looks at whether easy access to music from every parts of the world effect the sales of national and locally available music. According to the world system theory, the largest, wealthiest nations will have the most exports- this applies to music as well. "Recently, the dominance of four biggest music companies: Warner Music, Universal Music Group, EMI and Sony/BMG Entertainment- may be one of the most representative examples of internationalization and concentration of media ownership and control as a consequence of media globalization" (Moon 381). These four major labels control over 80% of the global music market. The mergers and taking-overs of these companies is like a pack of wolves tearing apart a carcass. Things have only gotten worse in this new global technological society where piracy and downloading are going strong. Streaming has also been a problem, because why buy the song when you can listen to it for free? http://www.musicglobalization.com/2009/10/music-industrys-biggest-problems.html

Pandora is the best example of this in America. Spotify is even worse for the music industry because unlike Pandora, you can choose the song (not just the station) that you want to listen to and it is available in the U.S., Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Pandora is not available outside of the U.S.

But, back to the study- what nations exported the most music? Ironically or not . . . the same countries looked at in my last post: Germany, U.S., Netherlands, and U.K. in that order. From 2002-2006 this centrality of music worldwide increased, but since then has decreased, most likely because the digital music age. The findings of this study proved that developed nations, such as the four mentioned, were the main exporters and importers of music while developing nations only imported music. Another area of interest is that one of the top four music companies is associated with each of the top four nations. Sony-Germany, Warner- U.S., EMI- U.K., and Universal- Netherlands. 

Since this post was more about international music companies, there aren't many videos or photos associated with that. So I researched and tried to find international music videos from each of the four countries mentioned signed by each of the four labels. This next song is called "Nur noch kurz die Welt retten" by Tim Bendzko and according to RadioCharts.com, it is currently the 5th most popular song on the radio in Germany. Tim Bendzko is signed by Columbia, which Sony Entertainment owns and his video can be seen here.

This next song is number five on Dutch top 40 according to http://acharts.us/dutch_top_40. The artist is signed by PIAS which according to this article, was recently bought by Universal, which is based in Netherlands.

Coldplay's new hit is currently number six in Germany as well as making the grade elsewhere. This British band is signed by EMI, based in the U.K. and you can find the video here.

Lastly, this song by Ed Sheeran is number 5 in the U.K. according to http://www.bigtop40.com/. This artist is signed by Warner U.K. 

And yes, I only chose songs that I also liked. :) And the last song was my favorite.

It seems to fit that the wealthiest countries (at least in the west) exported the most music, at least it fits with other studies done by Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy (2011). Introduction: Foundations of the Theory and Practice

of Global Media and Communication Policy. In Mansell, Robin, and Raboy, Marc (Eds.), The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy, pp. 1-20. Blackwell Publishers. [Electronic reserve]. This also fit with The “World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report” ITU (2010). World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report 2010. Monitoring the WSIS Targets: A mid-term review. Online: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/wtdr_10/material/WTDR2010_e_v1.pdf. Mansell says that new media and technology disadvantages the nations who cannot afford it. The ITU report says that high speed internet is a human right in countries like France, Estonia, and Finland, yet most of Africa has very little access to it.