One song, three owners: who really owns My Way
The song My Way belongs to its composers, Paul Anka and Claude Francois. Frank Sinatra's famous recording of it belongs to Capitol Records, while Sid Vicious's snarling punk version belongs to Virgin. And every CD or vinyl copy of either belongs to whoever bought it. Music splits into layers of property, each earning its own money.
The industry distinguishes compositions, recordings and physical media. A composer typically licenses rights to a publishing company, which collects publishing royalties whenever the song is used, often pays an advance up front, and hunts for placements in films and television. Sheet music income goes only to composers and publishers. Recordings are a separate asset, usually owned by a record label that funds the sessions and marketing in return for owning the result, while paying the artist a separate royalty. Session players and orchestra members, by contrast, usually get a flat fee with no ongoing share.
Owning a CD does not mean owning the music on it. Buyers generally may not copy or rent it out, because the label still owns what is encoded on the disc. The money passes along a chain: the shop pays the distributor, the distributor pays the label, the label passes mechanical royalties to publishers and composers through a collection society, then pays the artist if the contract says so. Online, the distributor can drop out entirely.
Records overtook sheet music as the business's main product between the 1930s and 1950s, giving birth to the modern Western industry. Since 2000 recorded music sales fell sharply while live concerts grew more important. By 2011 the world's biggest music retailer was not a shop but Apple's iTunes Store, and streaming has since overtaken downloads in annual revenue. Short video apps can now turn an obscure track into a global hit almost overnight.
Power is concentrated. By the 2020s four corporate labels, Universal, Sony, Warner and BMG, controlled most of the market, and Live Nation dominates concert promotion and venues. Home studios running software such as Pro Tools let many artists bypass costly commercial studios, and a few, like Ani DiFranco, run their own labels outright.
Source: Music industry
