Research pick: Digital music - "Innovations in digital technology and creative destruction in the music industry"

The digitalisation of the music industry has been massively disruptive, to say the least. From the studio mixing desk to the world of downloads, nothing has caused more friction and more opportunity. Indeed, access to music has never been easier nor has the ability for musicians to reach an audience.

Writing in the International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, researchers in India discuss the dismantling of long-standing practices to make way for innovation in terms of Schumpeter’s “creative destruction”. They examine how innovation across the music industry has ultimately increased productivity. They ask whether the creative destruction of analogue technologies paved the way for the new digital world. This fits neatly with their assessment of the Indian music industry, which they explain was one of the largest producers of music cassettes in the 1980s.

“With peer-to-peer networks and social connectivity new ways to create and promote music evolved. Middlemen could be laid off. The creations of artists reached the final consumers through costless digital transmissions,” write Bindu Balagopal of Victoria College, Palakkad, and Chacko Jose P. of Sacred Heart College, Chalakudy, Kerala, India.

The team has found that small, independent record companies are currently thriving. “The resilience of supply and a boom among fringe suppliers in spite of falling industry revenues is consistent with a process of creative destruction in the context of radical technological change,” the team adds. The researchers point out that the music industry has evolved significantly since the early days of printed sheet music to the world of digital downloads. “Developments in the music industry have been many and varied and have kept pace with the technological changes happening all over the world,” they conclude.

Balagopal, B. and Jose P., C. (2021) ‘Innovations in digital technology and creative destruction in the music industry’, Int. J. Indian Culture and Business Management, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp.303–318.