Market Share in the Music Industry; Have Major Labels Regained their Oligopoly?

Abstract

In 1999 Napster was first created, it was the first popular online space where users could share and listen to music. Major labels took big losses in revenue and indie labels saw an increase in market share. As the internet grew and with the birth of social media and music blogs, many say that major labels could be irrelevant since users could market and distribute themselves online. However, the data shows the world's biggest and most popular artists are still signed and distributed by their label. The data is from the three different year-end Billboard charts from 2006-2019. The data shows major labels maintain their oligopoly by taking up a large majority on the charts as the label, and an even larger majority as the distributors.