Success ratios, new music and sound recording copyright

This article addresses the uses that record companies have made of two rhetorical tropes. The first is that only one in ten artists succeed. The second is that they are investing in new music. These two notions have been combined to give the impression that record companies are risk taking both economically and aesthetically. They have been employed to justify the companies’ ownership of sound recording copyright and their system of exclusive, long-term recording contracts. More recently, the rhetoric has been employed to combat piracy, extend the term of sound recording copyright and to account for the continuing usefulness of record companies. It is the argument of this article that investment in new music is not necessarily risk taking; rather, it is policies derived from risk taking that provide the financial security of record companies.

This article has been published in a revised form in Popular Music https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143017000319. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © Cambridge University Press 2017