ABSTRACT

This chapter is concerned with the various ways in which the idea of the market can be used to help us understand how music works as a business. It begins with a consideration of markets as actual geographical spaces where goods and services are exchanged, and then discusses some different concepts of what, borrowing from Anderson (1991), I call “imagined markets.” Such music markets can involve consumers of musical goods and services, employers of musicians’ labor power, and/or businesses that use music. Here, ideas such as market failure, public goods, and intellectual property are introduced. Finally, the chapter briefly deals with new ways in which music is being consumed online and with the limits of the market idea.