Throughout the 20th century record labels underwent many changes, trials and tribulations. However, during those same years they exploited artists, practiced greedy business, and limited music in the market by eliminating or absorbing their competition. Now, with the dawn of the digital era and with high speed internet acting as the instrument of piracy, the record companies will be annihilated; from the ashes will be born a new system that embraces technology, justly compensates and creates equal opportunities among artists and that is regulated to make music a public commodity that is open source and an inspires creativity.
In 1877 Thomas Edison, with inspiration from “…work on two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone”, invented the cylinder phonograph. Little did he know, for his phonograph could only hold several minutes of recording and wasn’t particularly intended for song, that his invention would spawn the multi-billion dollar record industry. Edison’s invention was soon updated to a disc format and from there evolved in capacity, sound quality and durability. Initially there were three major labels: Victor, Edison and Columbia. Soon after the expiration of Edison’s patent on recording technology, new independent labels began releasing recordings; they mostly focused on jazz and blues. The first big challenge that the record companies faced came in the 1920’s, when radio stations began playing records over the airwaves and gave no compensation to the writer or copyright owner. This problem was solved by having Congress and the FCC intercede and create new legislation that regulated the radio stations by forcing them to keep tabs on how many times a song was played and pay the writer and copyright owner accordingly. The next trial that the record company faced was of a completely different sort but was handled in a similar fashion. In the 1940’s, after WWII, the reel to reel was brought over to the United States. This machine was expensive, but it became the first personal tool for music piracy. The machine could be used to record records in an analog format. The recordings had very low quality, were rarely sold second hand, and were contained to teenagers; even so the record companies managed to get the government involved by having the FCC collect a dividend from all blank media. This was the last true victory for the record industry.
Over the extensive lifetime of the record business, the companies have learned many trade secrets and ,like any good capitalist enterprise, they learned how to maximize profit. Normally this would be acceptable; a business doing all it can to make money just seems like common sense. However, this method is unethical when applied to an industry where art, individuality, and culture are affected on a grand scale. The truth is that the record companies control all aspects of the music that most people are aware of. It is widely known throughout the record industry that “All in all, the deal offered to artists by a major label is, you get the glory and we get the money”. The labels have vastly superior business and legal knowledge when cutting deals, and often artists feel pressured to sign these bad deals because of the desperation that come from working in such a competitive field. Once the artist signs, unless they are already extremely well established, they give record labels complete control of their art. During the recording process if “…the record company considers any master recording by the artist to be below its level of acceptability, the record company would typically demand the right to require that the artist rerecord such musical composition until the composition reaches the level that the company considers satisfactory for commercial distribution” and they often use this power to change the song until it conforms to a profitable cookie cutter mold. This standardization of music has become more and more evident as the major labels have merged; now only four major labels remain: Warner, EMI, Sony and Universal. The record industry is now technically an oligopoly because “…[four] record companies currently produce 83% of the recorded music currently sold in the United States.”. Also the song writers usually are not even entitled to the writes of their music because “The record company would typically insist on retaining as its property, free from any claims or action from the artist and the artists heirs…master recordings…as well as all the performances embodies on those recordings.”.
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