The Impact of Music Streaming on the Music Industry

Music Streaming: A Game Changer in the Music Industry

According to the article by Simms, music streaming is one of the appropriate ways for most of the stakeholders in the music industry. For a long time, the progress of music streaming has been halted by piracy and music rights issues. However, the recent developments have shown a positive trend of music streaming both locally and globally. These developments have an impact on many facets of the music industry. Streaming has changed the operations and economics of the music industry as there is associated reduction of the cost of producing and marketing music. This shift has changed how music is distributed and has enabled artists to tap into the emerging global markets. Streaming presents the artists with an access model where their songs are accessible all the time from any point of the world as opposed to the traditional sales models where records were distributed to the market. According to Simms, this shift of marketing strategy allows artists to receive income on their music for an unlimited period of time. This has reduced the artists’ pressure of maximizing record sales in order to get returns on investment.

The Impact on Copyright Ownership and Artist Relationships

Furthermore, streaming has changed the dynamics of copyright ownership and the relationships between artists and other stakeholders in the industry. Streaming has made music production and distribution easy, the partnerships between artists and other industry stakeholders have been restructured and became more beneficial to artists. This is because, with streaming, the artists retain all the music rights. This enables the artists to access favorable financing deals without having to give away their music rights. This implies that royalties have become valuable assets to the artists. This was the situation with the traditional music industry. Streaming has the potential to help artists in reaching in reaching the emerging markets such as China and India. Such development would change the finances of the music industry.

Reference

Simms, D., 2018. How streaming will continue to change everything in the music business.         [Online] Available at: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/how-streaming-will-           continue-to-change-everything-in-the-music-business. [Accessed Nov. 21, 2018]