From creator to data: the post-record music industry and the digital conglomerates

This article contributes to research on the changing music industries by identifying three dynamics that underpin the shift towards a post-record music industry. First, it examines how musicians have found themselves redefined as content providers rather than creative producers; a historical change from recorded music as product to content. Second, it focuses on tensions between YouTube and recording artists as symptomatic of disputes about the changing artistic and economic value of recorded music. Third, it extends this debate about the market and moral worth of music by exploring how digital recordings have acquired value as data, rather than as a commercial form of artistic expression. The article explores how digital conglomerates have become ever-more significant in shaping the circulation of recordings and profiting from the work of musicians, and highlights emergent dynamics, structures and patterns of conflict shaping the recording sector specifically, and music industries more generally.