No Cap: ASCAP and the fragmentation of music publishing

Abstract

The internet was originally conceptualized as a frontier within which creative and cultural output could thrive, bereft of the gatekeeping influence of major corporations in the analog era. As that digital era unfolded, the narrative shifted amid a concentration of media power and the precarity of digital labor, prompting questions about the democratization that the internet was purported to bring about. This project takes the music publishing industry as a case study of this democratization thesis, using network analysis to examine publishing data from ASCAP’s ACE Repertory to better understand the fragmentation or centralization of key social actors in the music industry. The study finds that the industry is greatly fragmented based on the total number of music licenses, pointing to a decentralization of music publishing. However, this does not provide a glimpse into how revenue is distributed in this network. These findings have implications for media studies, music industry analysis, cultural economics, and technology studies as technology continues to transform content creation.