Music industry executives have been the main gatekeepers in determining what music is available to consumers since the advent of the gramophone. As major record labels have become more highly consolidated, there has been an increasing concentration of those who determine what music is available for consumption. With the development of online music distribution, a gap has formed where independent artists can distribute their music by bypassing the costly hard media distribution system. This book explores how the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is used by the major record...

iTake-Over: The Recording Industry in the Digital Era sheds light on the way large corporations appropriate new technologies related to recording and distribution of audio material to maintain their market dominance in a capitalist system. All too commonly, scholars have asserted too confidently, how the rise and reign of digital music has diminished the power of major record labels. In iTake-Over, music scholar David Arditi argues otherwise, adopting a broader perspective by examining how the recording industry has strengthened copyright laws for their corporate ends at the expense of the...