The music industry are individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, represent and supply music creators. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate in the industry are: the songwriters and composers who write songs and musical compositions; the singers, musicians, conductors, and bandleaders who perform the music; the record labels, music publishers, recording studios, music producers, audio engineers, retail and digital music stores, and performance rights organizations who create and sell recorded music and sheet music; and the booking agents, promoters, music venues, road crew, and audio engineers who help organize and sell concerts. The industry also includes a range of professionals who assist singers and musicians with their music careers. These include talent managers, artists and repertoire managers, business managers, entertainment lawyers; those who broadcast audio or video music content (satellite, Internet radio stations, broadcast radio and TV stations); music journalists and music critics; DJs; music educators and teachers; manufacturers of musical instruments and music equipment; as well as many others. In addition to the businesses and artists there are organizations that also play an important role, including musician's unions (e.g. American Federation of Musicians), not-for-profit performance-rights organizations (e.g. American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and other associations (e.g. International Alliance for Women in Music, a non-profit organization that advocates for women composers and musicians). The modern Western music industry emerged between the 1930s and 1950s, when records replaced sheet music as the most important product in the music business. In the commercial world, "the recording industry"—a reference to recording performances of songs and pieces and selling the recordings–began to be used as a loose synonym for "the music industry". By the 2000s, a majority of the music market is controlled by three major corporate labels: the French-owned Universal Music Group, the Japanese-owned Sony Music Entertainment, and the American-owned Warner Music Group. Labels outside of these three major labels are referred to as independent labels (or "indies"), such as BMG, entertainment company Concord, Allied Artists Music Group, Reservoir Media, Secretly Group, Big Machine Label Group, PIAS Group, Beggars Group, Sub Pop, Domino Recording Company, Glassnote Records, Ninja Tune, Empire Distribution, & ECR Music Group. The largest portion of the live music market for concerts and tours is controlled by Live Nation, the largest promoter and music venue owner. Live Nation is a former subsidiary of iHeartMedia Inc, which is the largest owner of radio stations in the United States. In the first decades of the 21st century, the music industry underwent drastic changes with the advent of widespread digital distribution of music via the Internet (which includes both illegal file sharing of songs and legal music purchases in online music stores). A conspicuous indicator of these changes is total music sales: since the year 2000, sales of recorded music have dropped off substantially, while, in contrast, live music has increased in importance. In 2011, the largest recorded music retailer in the world was now a digital, Internet-based platform operated by a computer company: Apple Inc.'s online iTunes Store. Since 2011, the music industry has seen consistent sales growth with streaming now generating more revenue per year than digital downloads. Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music are the largest streaming services by subscriber count. In addition to streaming services changing the music industry as a whole, the development and success of social media platforms have also contributed to this dramatic increase in sales. One of the most popular platforms, TikTok, has played a major role in not only creating new musicians, but also expanding the global reach and viewership for music than ever before. In 2026, reports have stated that TikTok has approximately 1.5-1.9 billion active monthly users. With this amount of worldwide exposure, the platform has the capabilities to transform the music industry. The primary strength of each social media platform relies heavily in its massive user base, which is able to facilitate song promotion through various means—such as paying influencers to market tracks, releasing short video clips for user feedback, or launching viral dance challenges. The short-video format of TikTok, combined with algorithm-driven recommendations, enables even previously obscure tracks to suddenly skyrocket to popularity within a short timeframe. Additionally, many artists have been able to achieve international recognition, largely due to their songs becoming viral on TikTok. Alongside TikTok, other social media platforms have clearly demonstrated the pivotal role they play in shaping contemporary music trends, and dictating where the entire music industry is heading towards.
Business structure The main branches of the music industry are the live music industry, the recording industry, and all the companies that train, support, supply and represent musicians. The recording industry produces three separate products: compositions (songs, pieces, lyrics), recordings (audio and video) and media (such as CDs or MP3s, and DVDs). These are each a type of property: typically, compositions are owned by composers, recordings by record companies, and media by consumers. There may be many recordings of a single composition and a single recording will typically be distributed via many media. For example, the song "My Way" is owned by its composers, Paul Anka and Claude François, Frank Sinatra's recording of "My Way" is owned by Capitol Records, Sid Vicious's recording of "My Way" is owned by Virgin Records, and the millions of CDs and vinyl records that can play these recordings are owned by millions of individual consumers.
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