musicben just published a very cool data-visual over on his STVDIO+ newsletter, where he pulled together a small database of recent acquisitions and investments made by the big three major record labels.
That’s the $2 billion question! At this point, the majors are already heavily distro’ed up, but as Dan Fowler is always right to remind us, they also seem perfectly willing to spend big to simply buy market share and wipe out competition. Even when they already have similar infrastructure elsewhere in the music group.
Nice work and good read. Got a question for you - do you think there’s a kind of inevitable push and pull that is fundamentally part of the ecology of startups, innovation and business?
Streaming and Distributions massive shifts largely opened up the value from what I remember it looking like when I was first starting out in music back in 2000. Hell very different than it looked when I left Sony a decade ago… That lead to a lot of innovation.
I wonder if we need to look at this kind of consolidation as a zero sum game in the moment or more like a process - tidal maybe (there’s almost a bad pun buried in there somewhere) and in turn be ready or building for where the new opportunities are.
A very good question. It points to a fundamental challenge: how do we strategize within a context that is always shifting and still moving forward?
One way I think about it is that my critique is not directed at technological innovation itself, but at the political economy in which those innovations are born and then developed. I’m not saying distribution is bad for artists. I’m saying distribution infrastructure owned or controlled by a small group of powerful actors is bad for artists.
And, to be clear, this critique applies to the independent sector too. Take Concord gobbling up Ninja Tune today, including publishing, which really underscores that catalog was a major part of the deal. Consolidation within the “independent” sector carries many of the same risks as consolidation by the majors. The only real way to distinguish the two would be through a strong, values-based understanding of what “independent” means, one that actually shapes how companies behave. Otherwise, for many so-called independents, it’s just the same old capitalist business model with a “normative indie halo”.
Lol, I got a bit off track. But all of this is to say: yes, I agree, we need to think about this as a process, with strategic points of intervention where we can push back against the worst outcomes. A good example is my argument that artists and independents need a coalition to gain equity in music AI. That is a strategic opening to shape the flow of history. But equity alone is not enough. That equity then has to be pooled and used as leverage to build the kind of values-based music industry I’m talking about, etc.
Very total aside, but this is also where the left (Marxists) offer the genuinely useful method of dialectics, which is a way of thinking through contradictions, especially as they unfold over time. It helps us avoid getting stuck in static critiques of the past, and instead understand the historical and material processes that produced the present. From that perspective, digital distribution can be understood as the result of a contradiction between existing forms of capital and technological development, one that is now being “resolved” through the ongoing consolidation of distribution infrastructure by capital (i.e. majors buying up distros).
Reading my answer back I realized I didn’t really answer your first question 😃 but yes I think there will always be a forward movement (push pull) in music w startups etc. - my pitch isn’t let’s throw that out. It’s let’s democratize control over it (and distribute value more equitably).
I think it like most strategy questions is one of those bastard things to answer - I have always liked the notion that there are no answers just better questions.
Anything helps with that journey is good and all models and frameworks are broken in some way but if it helps evolve the questions it’s all good.
So I think you did answer! The thing that then sticks in my mind is this… people start companies for all kinds of reason, in creative industries there’s a lot of passion and art and so on … but they are businesses and the successful will grow and make money (in the most part) and prove themselves to be great entrepreneurs.
In some circles that entrepreneurship is celebrated in others derided or demonised. People often act shocked when a larger independent company “sells” (resisting referencing “sells out” here) but why would they not - surely that was the inevitable path all along.
Plus I have completely omitted the point that building a company comes with fiduciary duty that mean you legal should explore those kinds of opportunities etc.. etc…
I wonder if that problem is not concentration but as you say contraction to the few. Noting there are more now than there used to be and that is probably a win.
More capital, more investment, more larger entities that can participate generally is a sign of healthier ecosystems. So is it that this process is wrong or is the wider narrative and argument just miss aligned with the realities of “success” in creative industries.
I am rambling a bit and noodling as I write but I find this whole indie vs argument really compelling as it ties so many strands together around important questions about the friction of creativity and business run against each other….
Yes, I love noodling! Noodling together, and working out ideas in real time w/ others is really why I decided to start writing more on here. lol it’s risky business thinking in public, cause sometimes might step in it, but I also think there’s huge value in this!
I fully agree with your description of what’s happening — the system logic points to aiming for growth at all costs (whether profits or shareholder value). This is, of course, just capitalism we are describing. And to be sure, this critique of capitalism is really the core from which the specific critiques of music that I’m making emerge. The logic always points to chasing the one thing (growth), even if it actually hurts the long term sustainability of the thing those same institutions chasing profit say they care about (music). I agree with you that this is a structural problem. Though I there are definitely some people who actually suck as humans (e.g., the two Live Nation employees speaking about music fans and joyously celebrating “robbing them blind baby” - structural fixes can’t solve for these duds), I also want to be clear that I’m absolutely not aiming my critique at individuals working in these companies. We all gotta pay our rent, though I also think we will all need to make individual decisions aligned w/ our values to get out of this mess).
You correctly point to all the things that bind us into continually reproducing this logic (the legal forms and fiduciaries, for e.g.), even though we can all see that it’s producing worse and worse outcomes for most artists. I think here of how we saw streaming fail as a useful source of revenue for artists due to the payment system, and then live was the thing that could sustain you, and then monopoly and rising costs (partly via rising sellers inflation across supply chains, with monopolies outside music capturing +profits) made live not sustainable. It’s clear to me that we’re systematically undermining the foundations for music. The logic at work is making things worse (at least if our hoped for outcomes is a pluralistic world of art and music).
So thinking about your question: “So is it that this process is wrong or is the wider narrative and argument just misaligned with the realities of “success” in creative industries.” my answer is: There is a fundamental misalignment in the economic system under which we live, which produces conditions for growth to come at the cost of sustainability, and that is true in music, as well. It’s capitalism eating its own tail (I cannot recommend Nancy Fraser more on how these logics play out more broadly: https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/products/2685-cannibal-capitalism?srsltid=AfmBOoqCFoNFIVQp7GHl4z0XmcY23rO3Te2An7Nt52iFjbLvTaBK75gY).
What I’m working towards in my thinking and writing is (1) to identify how the structure is rotten wrt music - where do the system logics produce bad outcomes, and why; (2) Identify the attack surfaces for these structural logics, whether policy, regulatory, need for funding/finance/investment to experiment or build values aligned startups, etc.), and (3) Identify the potentials for organizing a coalition to align on shared values that is broad enough and w/ enough leverage and power to push on these attack surfaces across different fronts, in parallel *woof, big ask!*.
And I, of course, am bringing a distinct set of my own values to this. The idea isn’t to force a set of values on anyone, but to make clear that the conversations we’re having are fundamentally ABOUT VALUES, and how the music ecosystem ‘ought’ to be and be built together (the ‘normative’), even if we’re talking about practical things like who buys which companies, and what that means in terms of outcomes for artists and the music ecosystem.
I think I identify the ‘independent community’ as a useful seed point for this type of project, not because I think every non-major company has sterling artist-first values or acts those values out. But because ‘independent music’ has a history of coming from a political-values aligned place. For e.g. I’ve seen Martin Mills recently discuss how the idea behind Rough Trade was “was to apply Marxist theories of control of distribution to the record market.” So, this history seems like a good starting point for trying to clearly identify values that could form the basis of a broader coalition, and then have them hashed out. And of course, then having some way to ensure coalition members do the thing they say they will do should come along with this. And like you note, there will be times where values and long-term goals come up against immediate financial incentives, and those points are where there the rubber has to hit the road to improve things. But we also need the strategic analysis to be able to make clear the long-term value of those tradeoffs.
Last thing lol, this became an essay :) - maybe we should publish this exchange as a standalone article? - I fully realize many of the things I’m proposing aren’t currently within the Overton window of things that might realistically be considered by most w power to act in music. I sometimes worry that people will read me and think I’m naive in my analysis and recommendations (It’ll never happen, why even write it!). I definitely know the battle is uphill, but I’m hoping that focusing discussions around values, and then practical strategies can be useful to the slow slog of building power. Music rules, and I think we can produce the conditions for it to continue to rule!
*just noodling, anything I wrote here is subject to immediate revision 😂
Enjoyed your take on this. Definitely lays it all out there, a transparent display of key player interests.
I do not to see any sync licensing companies in your graph. It seems most of those companies (Songtradr, Chordal etc…) are still overlooked, since most licensing is handled in-house at labels and publishers working on big film and TV campaigns.
For that reason I believe sync licensing provides one of the biggest opportunities the indie community has to generate real disruption from the very bottom of the long tail. 5.2B+ people scroll and there is currently still no efficient system for brands to license real music at scale for social media…
I haven't really followed the micro-sync startup world enough to really know much. Isn't Songtradr kinda doing this? I remember a few years back seeing a bunch of startups pop up -- like Dequency -- that were trying to use Web3 to solve the efficiency problem (both matching, and administrating at massive scale) -- but never really followed up. Rights management can always be improved though -- many artists are saying lol!
2026 definitely turning into a year of consolidation. Where does you think Distrokid will land?
That’s the $2 billion question! At this point, the majors are already heavily distro’ed up, but as Dan Fowler is always right to remind us, they also seem perfectly willing to spend big to simply buy market share and wipe out competition. Even when they already have similar infrastructure elsewhere in the music group.
Nice work and good read. Got a question for you - do you think there’s a kind of inevitable push and pull that is fundamentally part of the ecology of startups, innovation and business?
Streaming and Distributions massive shifts largely opened up the value from what I remember it looking like when I was first starting out in music back in 2000. Hell very different than it looked when I left Sony a decade ago… That lead to a lot of innovation.
I wonder if we need to look at this kind of consolidation as a zero sum game in the moment or more like a process - tidal maybe (there’s almost a bad pun buried in there somewhere) and in turn be ready or building for where the new opportunities are.
A very good question. It points to a fundamental challenge: how do we strategize within a context that is always shifting and still moving forward?
One way I think about it is that my critique is not directed at technological innovation itself, but at the political economy in which those innovations are born and then developed. I’m not saying distribution is bad for artists. I’m saying distribution infrastructure owned or controlled by a small group of powerful actors is bad for artists.
And, to be clear, this critique applies to the independent sector too. Take Concord gobbling up Ninja Tune today, including publishing, which really underscores that catalog was a major part of the deal. Consolidation within the “independent” sector carries many of the same risks as consolidation by the majors. The only real way to distinguish the two would be through a strong, values-based understanding of what “independent” means, one that actually shapes how companies behave. Otherwise, for many so-called independents, it’s just the same old capitalist business model with a “normative indie halo”.
Lol, I got a bit off track. But all of this is to say: yes, I agree, we need to think about this as a process, with strategic points of intervention where we can push back against the worst outcomes. A good example is my argument that artists and independents need a coalition to gain equity in music AI. That is a strategic opening to shape the flow of history. But equity alone is not enough. That equity then has to be pooled and used as leverage to build the kind of values-based music industry I’m talking about, etc.
Very total aside, but this is also where the left (Marxists) offer the genuinely useful method of dialectics, which is a way of thinking through contradictions, especially as they unfold over time. It helps us avoid getting stuck in static critiques of the past, and instead understand the historical and material processes that produced the present. From that perspective, digital distribution can be understood as the result of a contradiction between existing forms of capital and technological development, one that is now being “resolved” through the ongoing consolidation of distribution infrastructure by capital (i.e. majors buying up distros).
Reading my answer back I realized I didn’t really answer your first question 😃 but yes I think there will always be a forward movement (push pull) in music w startups etc. - my pitch isn’t let’s throw that out. It’s let’s democratize control over it (and distribute value more equitably).
I think it like most strategy questions is one of those bastard things to answer - I have always liked the notion that there are no answers just better questions.
Anything helps with that journey is good and all models and frameworks are broken in some way but if it helps evolve the questions it’s all good.
So I think you did answer! The thing that then sticks in my mind is this… people start companies for all kinds of reason, in creative industries there’s a lot of passion and art and so on … but they are businesses and the successful will grow and make money (in the most part) and prove themselves to be great entrepreneurs.
In some circles that entrepreneurship is celebrated in others derided or demonised. People often act shocked when a larger independent company “sells” (resisting referencing “sells out” here) but why would they not - surely that was the inevitable path all along.
Plus I have completely omitted the point that building a company comes with fiduciary duty that mean you legal should explore those kinds of opportunities etc.. etc…
I wonder if that problem is not concentration but as you say contraction to the few. Noting there are more now than there used to be and that is probably a win.
More capital, more investment, more larger entities that can participate generally is a sign of healthier ecosystems. So is it that this process is wrong or is the wider narrative and argument just miss aligned with the realities of “success” in creative industries.
I am rambling a bit and noodling as I write but I find this whole indie vs argument really compelling as it ties so many strands together around important questions about the friction of creativity and business run against each other….
Yes, I love noodling! Noodling together, and working out ideas in real time w/ others is really why I decided to start writing more on here. lol it’s risky business thinking in public, cause sometimes might step in it, but I also think there’s huge value in this!
I fully agree with your description of what’s happening — the system logic points to aiming for growth at all costs (whether profits or shareholder value). This is, of course, just capitalism we are describing. And to be sure, this critique of capitalism is really the core from which the specific critiques of music that I’m making emerge. The logic always points to chasing the one thing (growth), even if it actually hurts the long term sustainability of the thing those same institutions chasing profit say they care about (music). I agree with you that this is a structural problem. Though I there are definitely some people who actually suck as humans (e.g., the two Live Nation employees speaking about music fans and joyously celebrating “robbing them blind baby” - structural fixes can’t solve for these duds), I also want to be clear that I’m absolutely not aiming my critique at individuals working in these companies. We all gotta pay our rent, though I also think we will all need to make individual decisions aligned w/ our values to get out of this mess).
You correctly point to all the things that bind us into continually reproducing this logic (the legal forms and fiduciaries, for e.g.), even though we can all see that it’s producing worse and worse outcomes for most artists. I think here of how we saw streaming fail as a useful source of revenue for artists due to the payment system, and then live was the thing that could sustain you, and then monopoly and rising costs (partly via rising sellers inflation across supply chains, with monopolies outside music capturing +profits) made live not sustainable. It’s clear to me that we’re systematically undermining the foundations for music. The logic at work is making things worse (at least if our hoped for outcomes is a pluralistic world of art and music).
So thinking about your question: “So is it that this process is wrong or is the wider narrative and argument just misaligned with the realities of “success” in creative industries.” my answer is: There is a fundamental misalignment in the economic system under which we live, which produces conditions for growth to come at the cost of sustainability, and that is true in music, as well. It’s capitalism eating its own tail (I cannot recommend Nancy Fraser more on how these logics play out more broadly: https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/products/2685-cannibal-capitalism?srsltid=AfmBOoqCFoNFIVQp7GHl4z0XmcY23rO3Te2An7Nt52iFjbLvTaBK75gY).
What I’m working towards in my thinking and writing is (1) to identify how the structure is rotten wrt music - where do the system logics produce bad outcomes, and why; (2) Identify the attack surfaces for these structural logics, whether policy, regulatory, need for funding/finance/investment to experiment or build values aligned startups, etc.), and (3) Identify the potentials for organizing a coalition to align on shared values that is broad enough and w/ enough leverage and power to push on these attack surfaces across different fronts, in parallel *woof, big ask!*.
And I, of course, am bringing a distinct set of my own values to this. The idea isn’t to force a set of values on anyone, but to make clear that the conversations we’re having are fundamentally ABOUT VALUES, and how the music ecosystem ‘ought’ to be and be built together (the ‘normative’), even if we’re talking about practical things like who buys which companies, and what that means in terms of outcomes for artists and the music ecosystem.
I think I identify the ‘independent community’ as a useful seed point for this type of project, not because I think every non-major company has sterling artist-first values or acts those values out. But because ‘independent music’ has a history of coming from a political-values aligned place. For e.g. I’ve seen Martin Mills recently discuss how the idea behind Rough Trade was “was to apply Marxist theories of control of distribution to the record market.” So, this history seems like a good starting point for trying to clearly identify values that could form the basis of a broader coalition, and then have them hashed out. And of course, then having some way to ensure coalition members do the thing they say they will do should come along with this. And like you note, there will be times where values and long-term goals come up against immediate financial incentives, and those points are where there the rubber has to hit the road to improve things. But we also need the strategic analysis to be able to make clear the long-term value of those tradeoffs.
Last thing lol, this became an essay :) - maybe we should publish this exchange as a standalone article? - I fully realize many of the things I’m proposing aren’t currently within the Overton window of things that might realistically be considered by most w power to act in music. I sometimes worry that people will read me and think I’m naive in my analysis and recommendations (It’ll never happen, why even write it!). I definitely know the battle is uphill, but I’m hoping that focusing discussions around values, and then practical strategies can be useful to the slow slog of building power. Music rules, and I think we can produce the conditions for it to continue to rule!
*just noodling, anything I wrote here is subject to immediate revision 😂
Enjoyed your take on this. Definitely lays it all out there, a transparent display of key player interests.
I do not to see any sync licensing companies in your graph. It seems most of those companies (Songtradr, Chordal etc…) are still overlooked, since most licensing is handled in-house at labels and publishers working on big film and TV campaigns.
For that reason I believe sync licensing provides one of the biggest opportunities the indie community has to generate real disruption from the very bottom of the long tail. 5.2B+ people scroll and there is currently still no efficient system for brands to license real music at scale for social media…
I haven't really followed the micro-sync startup world enough to really know much. Isn't Songtradr kinda doing this? I remember a few years back seeing a bunch of startups pop up -- like Dequency -- that were trying to use Web3 to solve the efficiency problem (both matching, and administrating at massive scale) -- but never really followed up. Rights management can always be improved though -- many artists are saying lol!