A Study of Transition of Business Models for Music Industry

Music was traditionally a means of meditation and worship of God. With progress of time it became a performing art. It was a runtime activity and was performed as well as listened to in a live mode. Gradually with advent of new technology the music could be stored and made available to its users in many forms, e.g. records, cassettes, spool tapes etc. Over a period of time this paradigm of storage and use of music shifted out into new storage and access paradigms. The technological change which made this possible was vastly disruptive. The purchase and use of music in the physical form has to face the challenge of the digital revolution. Gradually the digital technologies started taking the dominant share from the physical form of technologies. Also more user-centric solutions became possible due to enhanced searching and combining mechanisms. These themes originated based on the requirements of the end users as well as the creators of the music. These themes spread across various genres, presentation styles, instruments, requirement themes like birthdays, Discos, Classical, Private concerts etc. Various mobile apps, computed based apps, playlist creation and storage facilities, Video, Audio, Live streaming. Along with these, cloud based music storage and streaming services emerged and gained importance. All these factors led to emergence of various new business models. These were driven by the technological changes and the changes in usage patterns.