Challenges in The Music Industry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Challenges in The Music Industry - Essay Example The music industry is going through a hard time due to a decline in CD sales over the years. This is mainly due to the free digital downloads from file sharing sites. The artists are no longer earning much from royalties since the record companies are not selling as much as they once did. This has created the need for the artists and the record companies to seek other alternatives. The music industry is a massive one and consists of producers, artists, retailers, songwriters, marketing agencies, publishers, record studios, record labels engineers, manufacturers and distributors. Essentially, artists, who could also be songwriters, are signed under contracts by record companies to produce a given number of albums or singles. More often than not, record companies pay for the production, manufacture and marketing of albums worldwide. Any revenue generated from album sale goes towards covering the cost of its production. A number of record companies also have ownership rights to the back catalogue of artists. This in essence means that they can decide how this catalogue will be used. For instance, another artist may wish to re-record the song, or an advertising agency may want to use it in its campaign. The record company has the discretion of deciding whether or not to reissue the material. This could probably be in a reformatted version consisting of bonus tracks or could be completely re-mastered. In numerous cases, certain types of music do not have sufficient demand to warrant spending of a lot of money on them. As a result, the record company may make big losses on that artist. The record companies usually regard the artists they work with as among their product portfolio. This leads to very successful artists effectively subsidizing lesser known ones. Record companies therefore base their business on the ability to provide music capable of satisfying the consumers' wide range of tastes. They therefore have to manage their product portfolio carefully to make sure that the cash that flows into the business is adequate in maintaining all its liabilities. Many record companies are usually owners of other companies that they may either have set up or bought. For instance, Universal Music Group also owns other companies such as Deutsche Grammophon and Verve. The company also owns a number of labels distributing both rock and mainstream pop material. It is therefore common for the industry to be dominated by five or so major companies accounting for about 75 per cent of all recorded music sales worldwide. However, within these five companies may be many other companies and labels, which may be well- known in their field of operation. These smaller companies may actually have been set up or acquired by their parent companies. The challenges A number of record labels have seen their sales fall tremendously over the years. This fall has been attributed to increased piracy that has greatly affected the music industry. Artists get their royalties from their music's sales by the record companies. Piracy means that any sales made are not official, and therefore no payment for the artists. The advancement of technology has not made the situation any better. It has led to an increase

Criminal proceedings against Costa Concordia Master in shipwreck Essay

Criminal proceedings against Costa Concordia Master in shipwreck - Essay Example On one account, the captain has been taken to court with regard to the fact that he was careless in the way he managed the ship before the accident. His actions are seen to have been the cause of the accident. For instance, he took the ship to give a salute at the port where the ship got an accident. In doing this, the captain had to deviate from the computer-programmed route of the ship and this has been seen as a form of carelessness that the captain must be held responsible for. On the other hand, the captain has attained the informal salute was ordered by the company and it was not his own decision. Whether the company ordered the salute or not, the truth is that both the captain and the company as a whole are responsible and must take responsibility. Deviating from the computer-programmed navigation route was a careless mistake and this mistake led to the loss of 32 lives and injuries of many people as well as mental trauma of all aboard the ship. Although the court has said tha t all passengers should be paid ten thousand Euros each, this cannot be enough to pay those who lost their loved ones and the company must pay more in order to be an example to other similar firms. The other legal issue coming from the case is the captain’s conduct after the accident. ... This leaves a very huge responsibility on him and this is one case he has to answer in court. The concept behind requiring the captain to be the last to leave the ship in such an incident is that since the captain is the one on whom the safety of the ship is bestowed, the captain should be the one to take the biggest responsibility. This should motivate such a captain to be more careful in the way he conducts himself in the ship and making sure that all safety measures are being taken in order to make sure that everybody, including him, is safe and sound in the ship. The captain has not been able to explain fully why he left the boat as soon as possible and left over two thousand people stranded in the wrecked ship. This, combined by the fact that the accident was also as a result of his obvious carelessness, leaves the captain in a hard position and he has to make sure he is able to convince the court that the he acted as responsibly as he could have. The captain, in his defence, ha s said that the shipwreck was as a result of his officers failing to take his order and ignoring his orders. This argument is not necessarily the best considering that as a leader he could have done a better job to take better control of his staff. By failing to do this, the captain failed to meet his duty as the captain of the ship and, thus, will be legally considered primarily responsible of the accident. More than that, evidence showed that the captain and his crew were indifferent towards the needs of the suffering passengers. In a certain court hearing a few months from the time the disaster happened, evidence in the form of a video footage shows the captain and his crew doing the peaking