Record industry

In the early years of the phonograph in the late 19th century, the music industry was dominated by the publishers of sheet music. With the start of the 20th century the importance of recorded sound grew in the business, and about the end of the first World War records supplanted sheet music as the largest player in the music business. The business has largely been dominated and controlled by the record industry, as the economics of mass-production of copies allow the manufacture of valuable music recordings for a tiny fraction of their sale price. There have been repeated allegations of illegal price fixing by the record industry.

External links

• Recording Artists' Coalition website
• New York Metro article by Michael Wolff analyzing the decline of the record industry
• Salon article on Courtney Love's criticism of record industry business practices
• Federal Trade Commission press release regarding price fixing
• Antitrust settlement in Nevada price-fixing case
• Songwriter Janis Ian's critique of the record industry's policies
• The Net is the Independent Artist's Radio - August 10, 2005 MP3 Newswire article