Books by Richard Osborne
Owning the Masters, 2023
Owning the Masters provides the first in-depth history of sound recording copyright. It is this f... more Owning the Masters provides the first in-depth history of sound recording copyright. It is this form of intellectual property that underpins the workings of the recording industry. Rather than being focused on the manufacture of goods, this industry is centred on the creation, exploitation and protection of rights. The development and control of these rights has not been straightforward. This book explores the lobbying activities of record companies: the principal creators, owners and defenders of sound recording copyright. It addresses the counter-activity of recording artists, in particular those who have fought against the legislative and contractual practices of record companies to claim these master rights for themselves. In addition, this book looks at the activities of the listening public, large numbers of whom have been labelled 'pirates' for trespassing on these rights. The public has played its own part in shaping copyright legislation. This is an essential subject for an understanding of the economic, artistic and political value of recorded sound.
Music by Numbers, 2021
Introduction to Music by Numbers
In 2014 Tape Op Magazine posted a cartoon celebrating the 50 th anniversary of the Beatles' album... more In 2014 Tape Op Magazine posted a cartoon celebrating the 50 th anniversary of the Beatles' album A Hard Day's Night. The first panel shows the hip recording technology of 1964: the Beatles album is depicted as a 12-inch vinyl LP. The second panel shows 1967's new favourite: A Hard Day's Night is rendered as an 8-track tape. In the third panel we reach 1972 and the album is shown as a cassette. In the fourth, set in 1985, it is depicted as compact disc. And in the fifth, which brings us up to 2005, it is shown as an MP3 file on an iPod. The sixth and final panel is set in 2014. It shows the hip technology of this year: A Hard Day's Night is depicted as a vinyl LP.
Chapters in Edited Collections by Richard Osborne
The Present and Future of Music Law, 2021
Writing in 1988, Simon Frith stated that, for the recording industry, 'the age of manufacture is ... more Writing in 1988, Simon Frith stated that, for the recording industry, 'the age of manufacture is now over. Companies (and company profits) are no longer organised around making things but depend on the creation of rights' (Frith 1988: 57. Emphasis in original). Record companies were able to reach this position because, as well as owning sound recordings, they were the usual owners of sound recording copyright. The 'rights' that Frith refers to are the exclusive controls that belong to a copyright owner and which address the different ways in which their work can be employed. These include the reproduction right (at the time Frith was writing, this right would primarily have addressed duplicative manufacture i.e. physical media such as vinyl and cassette tapes) and the performing rights (prior to the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA) these rights encompassed the right to perform the work in public and the right to broadcast it; the broadcast right has subsequently been recast as the 'communication to the public' right, which in addition to covering broadcasts addresses the right of 'making available to the public'). Frith was not suggesting that record production was coming to an end; his point was that the recording industry was thinking of recordings in a different manner. Rather than focusing on them as physical products, it was conceiving them as a 'basket of rights' (Frith 1988: 57). He maintained that the job of a contemporary record company was 'to exploit as many of these rights as possible, not just those realised when it is sold in recorded form to the public, but also those realised when it is broadcast on radio or television, used on a film, commercial or video soundtrack' (Frith 1988: 57). 1 In many ways Frith's work was prescient. He paved the way for academics to conclude that the recording industry is a 'copyright industry' (Wikström 2009: 17. Emphasis in original). This approach has been accepted by governments. In 1994, Britain's Monopolies and Mergers Commission (later replaced with the Competition Commission) stated that copyright 'is central to the operations of the record industry' (MMC 1994: §1.4). The Congress of the United States has listed the recording industry as one of the 'core copyright industries' (CBO 2004: 3). It is also the opinion of representatives of the recording industry. In 2014, the global trade body, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), declared that the principal task of record companies is to invest in copyright (2014: 4). Today, it is common practice amongst business analysts to refer to these companies as 'rights holders' (AIM 2019; Mulligan 2020b). Yet there are also ways in which Frith's prognosis can be questioned. In the first instance, manufacture (and the associated right of reproduction) remained the recording companies' primary focus long after the period in which he was writing. In 2001, according to the IFPI's global revenue figures, physical sales were still accounting for ninety-eight per cent of recording industry revenues (IFPI 2020: 13). 2 Moreover, it was only in 2013 that the accumulated revenues from downloading, streaming, broadcast, public performance and synchronisation overtook revenues of physical products for the first time (IFPI: 2020: 13). Secondly, now that the manufacture of physical product has finally been eclipsed, it has become apparent that Frith's dictum can be turned on its head. Downloading and recordings in television programmes and radio broadcasts additionally triggers the communication to the public right, as do any 'public' uses of recordings in films, commercials or videos.
Music by Numbers, 2021
This chapter explores claims that the live music industry generates more revenue than the recorde... more This chapter explores claims that the live music industry generates more revenue than the recorded music industry in the UK. To do so, it takes a close look at statistics compiled by PRS for Music and UK Music, addressing four questions: (1) What is the purpose of their statistics reports? (2) What do they include in their totals for ‘recording’ and ‘live’? (3) How is the statistical information categorized? (4) Are performers able to assess their share of the money?
Music by Numbers: The Use and Abuse of Statistics in the Music Industries, 2021
The Routledge Companion to Media Technology and Obsolescence, 2019
Vinyl records differ from other media technologies in this book. Their obsolescence was planned a... more Vinyl records differ from other media technologies in this book. Their obsolescence was planned and was perhaps expected but it has not happened. Quite the opposite, in fact: there have been a number of vinyl revivals, the strongest of which is currently taking place. In the U.S., sales of vinyl albums and EPs declined from their peak of 341 million units in 1978, to just 900,000 in 2006 (Hogan, 2004). The situation was similar in the U.K. 1978 was the peak year, with trade deliveries of 86 million albums; in 2007 only 205,000 vinyl albums were sold (Osborne, 2012: 1). The last decade has witnessed a transformation. In the U.S., sales of vinyl albums increased thirteen-fold between 2006 and 2015, when total sales reached 11.9 million units (Nielsen, 2016). In Britain, 2.1 million albums were sold in 2015, the highest figure for 21 years (BPI, 2016). This upward trend is expected to continue. Research and Markets have forecast an annual growth rate in worldwide vinyl sales of 55.15% between 2016 and 2020 (Houghton, 2016a). This revival is not confined to a nostalgic, baby-boomer market. A U.S. survey suggested that while a quarter of vinyl listeners fall into the 55+ age bracket, one third are aged 13-24 (Houghton, 2016b). Hipsters and alternative music fans are buying vinyl: the annual "Record Store Day", which celebrates vinyl and independent record shops, has done much to publicize the format's appeal. And yet the format is also mainstream. Britain's two leading supermarket chains, Tesco and Sainsbury's, have recently begun stocking vinyl albums. The biggest-selling vinyl album in 2015 was Adele's 25 (BPI, 2016). As this release indicates, new music is being manufactured on the format. New pressing plants are also opening up. In the U.S., Independent Record Pressing, Cascade Record Pressing, Third Man Records, and Disc Makers have each been established since 2014. Moreover, many of these vinyl records are actually being played. One factor that is often mentioned in reports on the revival is that some contemporary purchasers do not own record players; they instead buy "vinyl to own it as a piece of art " (Hall, 2006). 1 Nevertheless, while there is some evidence that this phenomenon is true, sales of turntables have increased considerably. For example, Amazon's top selling audio product for Christmas 2015 was the Jensen JTS-230 (Owsinski, 2016). The fall and revival of vinyl have much to do with digital technologies. The analog vinyl record was deliberately targeted by the digital compact disc (CD). Thomas Edison invented sound recording in 1877. Symbolically, the planned launch date of the CD was 1977, marking the end of a century of analog records (Osborne, 2012: 82). The CD was successful too, achieving world sales of 200 billion by 2007 ("Compact Disc"). CD sales are in decline, however. They were first troubled by digital downloads; now they are faced with digital streaming. In contrast, the vinyl record has been helped rather than hindered by these successor formats. Its analog qualities provide a complement and an alternative to intangible digital files. And yet the affection for vinyl goes deeper. Vinyl is a multi-faceted product with diverse appeal. Many of its aspects were fetishized prior to the arrival of digital formats. In order to analyze these facets we need to explore the origins of the vinyl disc and the ways it has been perceived. We also need to go back beyond vinyl itself. Many important features of the analog record were in existence before vinyl was used for record manufacture. These include the groove, the disc shape, the label, the B-side, and the sleeve. As such, this essay will address analog discs more broadly, looking in turn at the way they have reproduced, shaped, described, and molded sound. It will also address differing types of vinyl records. Vinyl has sub-formats, most notably the 7-inch single, the 12-inch single, and the long-playing (LP) record. These sub-formats have differing qualities and attract differing adherents. They have each played a role in vinyl's growth and survival. How to Reproduce Sound The ability to preserve and reproduce sound was a long-held human desire. There were early attempts, such as the statue of Memon at Thebes, built approximately 1490 BC, or the talking head designed by the English monk Roger Bacon in the Middle Ages. In addition, there were fictitious reveries. Charles Grivel noted that "The wish for phonography more or less fills literature, from Homer to Rebelais to Porta to Becher, to Grunderl and Nadar, to Cros and Villiers" (1992: 39). However, it was not until the late 19th century, when Edison developed his phonograph, that this dream was successfully realized. The technology was surprisingly simple. Sounds were made into a recording horn; these sounds would vibrate a diaphragm; the diaphragm would in turn vibrate a stylus; the stylus would etch the sounds into a rotated recording medium. To reproduce the sounds, this order was reversed. At the heart of this process lay the groove. This is where the sounds were captured and where they could be witnessed. The responses to this sound writing-the "phono graph"-have been varied. The groove provided an initial source of wonder; it is the reason why the record was considered to be outmoded; and it is one of the reasons why the record has survived. Key to its importance is the fact that it appeals to a number of senses: the groove can be seen, touched, and heard.
Mute Records: Artists, Business, History, 2018
In 1999 Mute Records released Play by Moby. Daniel Miller has admitted that the label was not in ... more In 1999 Mute Records released Play by Moby. Daniel Miller has admitted that the label was not in 'great shape' at this point and nor was Moby's career (Miller 2017: 29). The performer had had chart success in the UK with his 1991 single 'Go', which was released by the Mute sub-label Rhythm King. His left-turn turn from electronica to hardcore punk with Animal Rights (1996) was poorly received, however, confusing fans and record company alike. Play was therefore an unexpected triumph. By 2016, it had sold more than 12 million copies, making it the world's highest-selling electronica album (Zlatopolsky 2016). For Miller, this turnaround was 'like the cavalry coming over the hill', safeguarding Mute for the twenty-first century (Miller 2017: 29). This chapter explores the phenomenon of Play but in a tangential manner. It traces three overlapping stories. It explores 'Blackface' minstrelsy, the most popular form of entertainment in the US from the mid-1840s until the end of the nineteenth century. It addresses the work of the author Herman Melville, whose quest was 'the absolute amidst its relative manifestations [...] the delicate and shifting relationship between its truth and its illusion' (1949: 15). And it examines Moby and the music he recorded and sampled for Play. This album, through its use of sampling, bears hallmarks of minstrelsy. It also raises questions about truth and illusion. Melville and Minstrelsy Oh yes, oh yes, dar is aboard here a werry nice, good ge'mman wid a weed, and a ge'mman in a gray coat and white tie, what knows all
Mute Records: Artists, Business, History, 2018
Critical Approaches to the Production of Music and Sound, 2018
In concert music John Cage’s 4’33” has overshadowed all other silent compositions, but within sou... more In concert music John Cage’s 4’33” has overshadowed all other silent compositions, but within sound recording there is a wide range of silent records. It is the purpose of this piece to chart the uses to which silent record production has been put. Some artists have used silence to illustrate the nuances of recording formats (Christian Marclay has made ‘silent’ vinyl records to note the noise of analogue grooves; in contrast, the Melvins have used silence to highlight the dead spaces of CDs). Others have used silence to comment on the music industries’ monetary policies (Vulfpeck have issued silent streams as a way of earning money for nothing, while Michelle Shocked has released silent streams to protest that this format has paid her little for her music). Silent records have been produced in the name of conceptual art: there are musicians who have covered 4’33” (Frank Zappa), who have edited it (Sonic Youth), and remixed it (Adam F, Mr Scruff). Silence has been used to register political protest (Sly and the Family Stone, John Lennon, John Denver) or to make comment upon censorship (Crass, Orbital). It has also been used as an act of remembrance (West Coast Art Pop Experimental Band, Mike Batt). When silence moved away from the concert hall and onto the record it had a new range of stories to tell. It can make us think again about record production, record formats, royalties, copyright, audience expectations and even music itself.
Musicians and their Audiences: Performance, Speech and Mediation, 2017
As a popular musician, how do you learn how to perform? One answer is that you watch television, ... more As a popular musician, how do you learn how to perform? One answer is that you watch television, film or video. Most contemporary pop and rock performers will have gained their first impressions of their trade by watching other performers on screen. They will have seen filmed performances before they have played live and before they have attended a gig. As an audience member, how do you learn how to perform? I believe the answer is the same: the screen is a primary location for discovering what you are expected to do. Most fans first witness other music audiences via mediated sources.
LitPop: Writing and Popular Music, Dec 2014
This chapter addresses the relationship between literature, popular music and classical music by ... more This chapter addresses the relationship between literature, popular music and classical music by examining the packaging of the printed word and recorded sound, with a particular focus on the novel and the vinyl record. When it comes to packaging, music is indebted to literature. The vinyl record has three main components – the groove, the label and the sleeve – and each has links with written word. The groove is sound in script form, a text written with the ‘pencil of nature’. In 1877 Thomas Edison constructed the first machine to successfully play back these tracings. He christened it the ‘phonograph’, a term arrived at by combining the Greek words for ‘sound’ and ‘writing’. Eldridge R. Johnson, the head of Victor Records, developed the paper record label at the beginning of the twentieth century. Colin Symes has argued that the label ‘fulfils many of the same functions as a [book’s] title page. When it comes to sleeve art, the person generally credited with inventing the record cover is Alex Steinweiss. His packaging for the LP record was modelled on the dusk jackets for hardback novels.
In this chapter I examine the bookish reification of music, looking in turn at grooves, labels and sleeves. I explore the ways in which this packaging encouraged people to think of the correspondences between sound recording and the printed word. However, although the record kept on spinning back to literary models, this influence also highlighted differences between the two forms. Literary formatting also helped to encourage differences within music, most notably the ‘great schism’ that widened between its classical and popular forms. In the section on the groove I address the implications of turning sound into script, a process that underlined the differing statuses of literature, classical music and popular song. In the sections on labels and sleeves I draw upon the work of Gerard Genette to examine whether or not these devices serve the same function as the title pages of books and their dust jackets.
Film and the End of Empire, Nov 2011
Mark E. Smith and the Fall: Art, Music and Politics, May 2010
a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a... more a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m
Journal Articles by Richard Osborne
Popular Music, 2023
In Britain, the Select Committee of the government department for Digital, Culture, Media and Spo... more In Britain, the Select Committee of the government department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has investigated the economics of streaming and recommended that the share of revenues for record companies should decrease so that songwriters can earn more. This article addresses lobbying activity that has resulted from this recommendation. To support their causes, songwriter representatives and record company organisations have made incorrect or misleading use of data from the report Music Creators’ Earnings in the Digital Age. This article looks at the impact of these uses and provides corrections and alternatives to the statistics that have been employed. It also looks at the importance of the issues that have been raised. In conclusion, it addresses aspects of record company accounting that will need to be considered if an increase for songwriters is to be made at their expense.
International Journal of Cultural Policy, 2023
This article analyses the statistical reporting of UK Music, the umbrella organization that provi... more This article analyses the statistical reporting of UK Music, the umbrella organization that provides a collective voice for British music industry trade bodies. It documents changes in methodology from the organization’s earliest reports, which provide financial data for each industry sector and use the prosperity of the business as a platform from which to lobby, to the reports for the years of the COVID-19 pandemic, which turn away sectoral information to argue that the industry is an ecosystem and music is beneficial for national well-being. In the process, UK Music submerges evidence that record companies and music publishers fared well during the pandemic while music creators and live music industry workers suffered greatly. As well as uncovering this information, this article considers why it has been neglected. It has enabled UK Music to lobby for actions that work across the industry and sidestep arguments that music creators should receive a greater share of remuneration. It has also helped to keep UK Music intact.
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Books by Richard Osborne
Chapters in Edited Collections by Richard Osborne
In this chapter I examine the bookish reification of music, looking in turn at grooves, labels and sleeves. I explore the ways in which this packaging encouraged people to think of the correspondences between sound recording and the printed word. However, although the record kept on spinning back to literary models, this influence also highlighted differences between the two forms. Literary formatting also helped to encourage differences within music, most notably the ‘great schism’ that widened between its classical and popular forms. In the section on the groove I address the implications of turning sound into script, a process that underlined the differing statuses of literature, classical music and popular song. In the sections on labels and sleeves I draw upon the work of Gerard Genette to examine whether or not these devices serve the same function as the title pages of books and their dust jackets.
Journal Articles by Richard Osborne
In this chapter I examine the bookish reification of music, looking in turn at grooves, labels and sleeves. I explore the ways in which this packaging encouraged people to think of the correspondences between sound recording and the printed word. However, although the record kept on spinning back to literary models, this influence also highlighted differences between the two forms. Literary formatting also helped to encourage differences within music, most notably the ‘great schism’ that widened between its classical and popular forms. In the section on the groove I address the implications of turning sound into script, a process that underlined the differing statuses of literature, classical music and popular song. In the sections on labels and sleeves I draw upon the work of Gerard Genette to examine whether or not these devices serve the same function as the title pages of books and their dust jackets.
canonical tastes of young adults.
It is being weakened. Artists, labels and publishers are withdrawing from licensing schemes for streaming. Entrepreneurs are proposing Blockchain systems that will do away with the need for collection societies. It is licensors and licensees who have dominated narratives about collective licensing. Questions of ‘public’ interest have been focused on how much businesses should pay and how much creators should receive. It is the argument of this paper that music consumers need to enter these debates. If collective licensing is eroded then music will become more expensive and scarce.
We witness three types of creative accounting. First, these songwriting splits provide a narrative of joint creation; they are an attempt to tell the story of the division of labour. Second, in the absence of regulation, they open the door to creative bookkeeping practices. These shares rarely capture true contributory input; instead, they are the result of compromise, pressure and established norms. Third, as well as reflecting artistic practice, the accounting of songwriting labour helps to shape it. Standard practices have fostered creative environments.
In my paper I wish to trace the development of these divisional norms; from the songwriting partnership model that was common in the pre-rock era, to the egalitarian split between band members that started to emerge in the 1960s, to the explosion of credits that we witness today. I will also examine the effect of these norms. Divisional practices have enabled some areas of songwriting practice to flourish, while they have prompted others to decline. It takes creative endeavour to do the splits.