Regulation in the face of change: the case of music

Thesis defended on the 9th of November 2022 at 9:00 am and it took place at Lycée Henri IV

Abstract:

Despite the impression of a return to business as usual thanks to streaming, the music economy is in fact in a state of continuous mutation. Our thesis is based on the idea that this permanent change questions the way in which the actors of the music industry set the rules of their ecosystem. This is the question that runs through our thesis: how are rules established in music? To answer this question, we observe the rule processes of three surprising facts: the importance of the CNV-CNM aid commissions, the success of the Believe company and the rise of livestreaming.

We refer to these rule processes as "regulation". Indeed, this concept proves to be singularly fertile: guided by the unique case of music, we show that the contrasting approaches that have dealt with it are complementary and allow us to build our own analytical grid of a regulation articulated around three pillars (its rules, their actors and the processes that run through them) to which we add a dimension of levels.

Thus, the study of the CNV-CNM funding commissions allows us to approach the micro- levels of the regulation operated by the musical policy. We show that a visible regulation is completed by latent regulations: commissions surrounded by informal instances and networks, criteria completed by reasons for decision, a variety of aided structures, but a concentration of support; the entire system is governed by a general principle of professionalization

This installed regulation contrasts with the practices of an actor of change. With the case of Believe, a rapidly expanding company, we show that following a singular strategic trajectory, an unprecedented pyramidal organization has emerged between platforms and artists, giving rise to practices that combine digital technology and business expertise, and favoring the expansion of a digital distribution market that has become central. Its driving principle is independence through digital.

Then, the rise of the livestream gave us the opportunity to see the meeting of the actors of the ecosystem and their ways of establishing rules in a situation of multiple changes. We identify five divergent strategies that illustrate the meeting of five different regulations in the ways of conceiving the show, the ways of apprehending the technique, the ways of building or not building economic models on it, and the ways of negotiating the regulatory framework. The CNM has not escaped the tendency of these strategies to rely on the existing: if the change has brought a necessary adaptation of the rules, in general the logic of the aid system has been extended to the new establishment.

Finally, these investigations lead us to make two types of contributions. First, we take stock of our approach to regulation: the rules we encountered in the course of our research invite us to consider forms that are more or less formal, but which are interdependent. We confirm an enlarged vision of the actors of regulation and we identify five non-exhaustive processes of rules: the installation of a spirit of rules, the sedimentation of practices, the desynchronization of levels, the marginalization of certain rules and the countermeasures to this marginalization. Then we formulate managerial recommendations on the different risks of cracks between the rules.

Composition of jury :

Key words:

Music Industry, Régulation, Change, Innovation, Digital transformation