The Music Industry and the Digital Revolution

Although digital technology has transformed how consumers experience music, the music industry’s business model has resisted change. In a standard record deal, artists surrender their music rights to a record company. Yet many artists, including rock band Radiohead, are challenging this model, which unfairly favors record labels. When Radiohead’s contract with EMI expired in 2007, the band released its next album, In Rainbows, as a digital download and allowed fans to pay whatever they wanted for the album. Ultimately, the band earned more digital income from In Rainbows than from all its previous ...