The Music Indusrty

The Music Industry

Today's music industry or music business consists of the companies, groups and individuals that make money by creating and selling music. Among the many individuals and organisations that operate within the industry are: 

• The musicians who compose and perform the music, 
• The companies and professionals who create and sell recorded music,  
• Live music performers, 
• Professionals who assist musicians with their music careers, 
• People who broadcast music via radio or the internet, 
• Journalists educators, 
• Musical instruments manufacturers and much more.

The distribution of music created can be sold in albums or singles which get sent to the shops. Distribution companies sign deals with record labels that gives them the right to sell that label's products to record stores, such as HMV and over supermarkets, that have an account with that distributor. iTunes and Amazon have a good reputation for delivering there label's music to their customers.  The distributor takes a cut of income from each album sold and then pays the label the remaining balance.

Some distributors expect a record label to provide them with finished product, but sometimes a distributor will do an "M&D" deal with a label. M&D stands for manufacturing and distribution. With this set up, the distributor will pay for all of the manufacturing costs of an album up front, and then keep all of the income from the album until that initial investment is paid off.