Running head: IS MUSIC A BUSINESS OR ART?!
Is Music a Business or Art?!
Maher El Khechen
Amercian University of Beirut
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IS MUSIC A BUSINESS OR ART?!
Abstract
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The world music industry has a lot of record labels. However, only three major companies own most of those records and their music production. Researching the production labels of our personal albums can lead to this conclusion. However, there are some independent labels that try to resist the major companies. The concentration of the music industry in few major labels plays its role in imposing certain values or trends in the products. This ownership scene does not change on the local scale (in the Arab world), where there are few businessmen that occupy the
Arab music and film industry. Media industry is undergoing many changes; technology is major one of them. This leads to change in the music market leadership as happened with Wal-Mart
Company.

IS MUSIC A BUSINESS OR ART?!
Is Music a Business or Art?!
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People may see that the world music industry is complex because of the huge number of record labels that produce music. This complexity will surely disappear with a bit research when people discover that only three parent companies own the music industry in the world, “and the rest are merely subsidiaries. Some smaller labels are subsidiaries of other subsidiaries, and it goes on and on. It can get kind of tricky” (Nelson, 2012). Those three major companies are:
Universal Music Group, Sony, and Warner Music. In addition, there are some independent labels that own a small percentage in media industry, which makes them try hard to resist the three companies and maintain a certain level of style and content. The concentration, conglomeration, and integration in music industry will let the owners impose certain values (sex, religion, patriotism etc…) or music content in their production. However, because media and music in particular is nothing but a business, Croteau and Hoynes (2003) see that “increased diversity may prove to be an effective strategy in a profit-making industry” (p. 58). The music industry is in a continuous transformation, especially in the market leadership (ex: Wal-Mart) due to technology, changes in record labels’ relations and competitions among them. Therefore, the three major labels that dominate the music industry raise questions of diversity in style and content, and of the influence on audiences, artists, and music products.
Choosing ten random albums from which I listen to makes me discover that the diversity in records labels is nothing but a trick. Only two major companies Universal Music Group (7 albums) and Sony Music Entertainment (3 albums) own 11 Record labels of my 10 albums. The chart in the appendix shows the list of albums with the artists, record label, and major label or company. The years of the albums’ production range from the 1960s till this year. This shows that the domination over the music industry is not new. What has changed maybe is the decrease

IS MUSIC A BUSINESS OR ART?! of the number of major labels from four in 2012 for example to three at this moment. This happened when EMI came under the umbrella of Universal Music Group that had a big interest in purchasing EMI (Nelson, 2012).
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When we see that only three companies own all the music production in seven continents, we feel that we have to resist this unfair control and this sad fact. However, when we buy or download the albums of the artists we love (as in my attached chart); we are supporting in an indirect way the dominant music companies we tend to resist. Maybe, personal productions or working with independent labels will show the artists’ work free of the limitations of the companies and dependence on them. Nevertheless, this is somewhat impossible in a world where music is a business at first, and profit making precedes art. In case independent labels produce the music of some artists, they have to stay up to the level of the major ones especially in terms of the style, content, the money paid for the production and the conditions of the contracts. In most of the times, the independent labels produce music with less quality than the major ones that control the whole production process.
The scene of ownership does not change locally when it comes to the Arab world. There are tens of music companies, however, the dominant is one: Rotana. Because the music is business even in the Arab world, it is no surprise that the “Billionaire Saudi Prince al-Waleed
Bin Talal” owns Rotana. According to Usher (2007), “Rotana runs six TV channels, a record company and has a roster of more than 100 of the Arab world's top stars” (para. 15). Hence, the whole Arab music industry is in the hand of a Saudi Prince and some others that tend to sell or promote, using their companies, certain trends, themes, or messages (mostly political). One example, according to Usher (2007), is “selling sex”, where most of the video clips or songs show sexual scenes or phrases.

IS MUSIC A BUSINESS OR ART?! 5
The domination of music industry by few major companies can reflect positive and negative aspects in the field. First, the money of those companies will increase and they will use them to improve their productions. In McDonald’s words (2012), by using the money the companies will “offer you a large advance and invest a lot in recording, touring, video shoots and other opportunities” (para. 2). In addition, in order to guarantee success in their art, the artists will need the connection those companies have because of their long work time in the field. On the other side, those dominating companies will change the art and music into business only.
They will put certain limits or rules when contracting with artists in order to maintain continuous work and success or in other words- profit. The artists and their art are tools for the success of the companies businesses where businessmen occupy the music industry more than artists and musicians.
The concentration and control of the music field by few major companies lead to the control of the content of the products, which means the kind of music songs, and their lyrics. One fear of this is “the concentration of power and the limitation of media access” (Croteau and
Hoynes, p. 51, 2003). Moreover, this leads to the homogenization of the products, when you we realize that the contents of the songs are mostly the same. The horizontal integration, as Croteau and Hoynes (2014) see, “leads to the absence of competition” in the music field that in turn “will lead inevitably to homogeneous media products that serve the interests of the increasingly small number of owners” (p. 51). Thus, the products the companies will sell are not pure music but are trends and values such as certain love relations, sex, religion and others. The albums I chose are example of this, where love relations framed in a certain way appear in Chris de Burg, The
PussyCat Dolls, Whitney Houston, Lara Fabian and others’ albums. Some video clips of the songs show sex for example. Those values and trends are different from the ones in the Arab

IS MUSIC A BUSINESS OR ART?!
Culture where I live; nevertheless, it is not a big problem in most of the Arab countries these days. This returns back to the similar trends and values that Rotana and other major Arab companies sell, as I mentioned before.
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The major companies need audiences to their products in order to succeed in their businesses. Hence, they see that the audiences’ taste and opinions about music matter, because as they change, “the method of distribution, and the organizations of media industry will likely respond in ways that enhance the bottom-line profitability of major firms" (Croteau and Hoynes, p. 58, 2014). In conclusion, those companies will have diverse products in order to indirectly maintain their profits.
Wal-Mart was a big owner in the music industry, especially in celling CDs using a lowprice policy where it sold albums with less than 10$ each when it bought it with 12$. However, one reason why companies including Wal-Mart have lost their market leadership is the introduction of technology and internet, where people find music online (YouTube, music websites etc.) or download it for free or with very cheap prices. In addition, the audiences- the main part of the whole business process- call for cheaper prices of CDs and those companies cannot cut more from their profits. As Wal-Mart lost its leadership, “industry sales suffered severely” because they depend majorly on it (Cohen, para. 6, 2012). The technological interventions in the music industry and other factors have led iTunes (Apple Inc) to surpass Wal-
Mart and become the leading vendor.
In conclusion, only three major companies own most of the world’s label records and music productions. This ownership leads to homogenization of the products and control over their content, but there are still some artists that want to show that art can surpass business.

IS MUSIC A BUSINESS OR ART?!
References
Cohen, W. (2004, Oct 22). Wal-Mart wants $10 CDs. Rolling Stone . Retrieved from http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2004/10/walmart_wants_1.html
Croteau, D., & Hoynes, W. (2014). The Economics of the Media Industry. In Media/Society:
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Industries, Images, and Audiences (Fifth ed., p. 401). Thousand Oaks: SAGE
Publications.
McDonald, H. (2012). Major record label deals: pros and cons. Retrieved from http://musicians.about.com/od/beingamusician/a/majorlabelpandc.htm
Nelson, D. (2012, June 15). Big Four records companies may become the Big Three. Consumer
Affairs . Retrieved from http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2012/06/big-four records-companies-may-become-the-big-three.html
Usher, S. (2007). Arab youth revel in pop revolution. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6666725.stm

IS MUSIC A BUSINESS OR ART?!
Appendix
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Artist
Chris De Burgh
Evanescence
Album
Lady in Red: The
Collection
My Immortal
Patrick Fiori,
Daniel Lavoie and
Garou
Sting
Notre Dame de
Paris
Fields of Gold
The Pussycat Dolls Sway
Patricia Kaas Mon mec a moi
Edith Piaf La vie en rose
Whitney Houston The Bodyguard:
Original
Soundtrack
Album
Indila Mini World
Lara Fabian Pure
Record Label
Spectrum Music
Parent Company Major/Independent
Universal Music
Group
Major
Major Wind-up Records Universal Music
Group
Sony Music Sony Music
Entertainment
Major
A&M Records
A&M Records and Interscope
BSO, Polydor,
PolyGram
Coloumbia
Records
Aritsa Records
Universal Music
Group
Universal Music
Group
Universal Music
Group
Sony Music
Entertainment
Sony Music
Entertainment
Major
Major
Major
Major
Major
Capitol Music
Group
PolyGram and
Polydor Records
Universal Music
Group
Universal Music
Group
Major
Major
The whole albums are ten, but I have downloaded them on internet and did not buy them, so the numbers below show the amount of money lost by each part of the industry:
First the total amount would be: 10CDs * 15.99$ (cost of one CD) = 159.9 $
$1.7 Musicians' unions
$8.0 Packaging/manufacturing
$8.2 Publishing royalties

IS MUSIC A BUSINESS OR ART?!
$8.0 Retail profit
$9.0 Distribution
$16.0 Artists' royalties
$17.0 Label profit
$24.0 Marketing/promotion
$29.1 Label overhead
$38.9 Retail overhead
(Cohen, 2004).
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