Turning our attention, then, to finance and consolidation, what exactly is being financialized and consolidated? As scholars have noted often over the years, there is no music industry singular, and invoking it as such carries many drawbacks. By implying a homogeneous industry and conflating it with the recording industry, the term music industry does a disservice to the complexity and diversity of what John Williamson and Martin Cloonan suggest should be called the music industries, plural. The recording industry and its associated lobbying organizations—namely, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI)—have much to gain from this conflation: their vested interests are better served by portraying an entire industry in crisis. “It is not a single ‘music industry’ which is in ‘crisis,’” explain Williamson and Cloonan, “rather it is one of the music industries which is struggling to come to terms with the new business environment which has been created by technological and communications advances.”

DEFINE: Introduces the distinction between the singular 'music industry' and the plural 'music industries,' attributed to Williamson and Cloonan, as a corrective conceptual framework.

Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, loc. 180