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Inside the Industry
Inside the Industry
Discover how the music industry really works. Learn about copyright, release planning, and real-world strategies from experienced professionals across the industry.
Index: How the music industry works - a history of technology, rights, and how to get paid
The music industry's complexity isn't intentional design - it's a patchwork of laws that evolved in response to changing technologies. This series follows that evolution from the printing press to the algorithm, one breakthrough at a time.
1 min
How the music industry works 1: From printing press to performance royalties
How the printing press created the music publishing industry and why songwriters eventually fought for the right to be paid every time their songs were performed in public.
3 mins
How the music industry works 2: From recording technology to radio broadcast royalties
How recording technology created mechanical royalties, why radio threatened to undo everything, and how the ASCAP and BMI dispute accidentally reshaped popular music.
3 mins
How the music industry works 3: From talkies to television - synchronization and the two license rule
How synchronization licensing emerged from early cinema, why two licenses are always required, and how the broadcaster - not the production company - pays the ongoing royalties.
3 mins
How the music industry works 4: From cassette tapes and MTV to the CD boom
How the cassette created a home copying culture, why MTV changed what it meant to be a recording artist, and how the CD delivered the industry's greatest windfall while quietly introducing the perfect digital copy.
3 mins
How the music industry works 5: Napster, iTunes, and the internet's first assault on the music industry
How Napster broke the model, why suing millions of music fans didn't work, how iTunes offered a partial fix, and how blog culture and early platforms began redistributing power in ways nobody anticipated.
3 mins
How the music industry works 6: The rise of the independent artist
How Pro Tools, CD Baby, and Myspace gave artists the tools to record, distribute, and promote without a label - and what the connected ecosystem of indie radio, blogs, and venues made possible.
3 mins
How the music industry works 7: The indie sync boom
How the indie sync boom created a new kind of music business, why the supervisor and sync agent relationship runs on trust and speed, and how the workflow problem that came with rapid growth changed everything.
3 min
How the music industry works 8: The streaming era
How streaming rebuilt the industry's revenue model, why the major labels were already on the right side of it before it launched, and what algorithms, TikTok, and AI mean for artists trying to navigate it today.
4 mins
How the music industry works 9: The artist in the present tense
How artists are navigating streaming economics, UGC, fan management tools, the real cost of touring, and why the portfolio career has become the only model that reliably works for independent musicians.
4 min
Creator Conversations
Check out our interviews with top Producers and Artist and Composers on DISCO.
2 min
