Stream of Conscience? Live Music Streaming: Utility, Capital and Control

Abstract

This article takes a look at the ever expanding and increasingly commercially significant world of live music streaming through the nexus of electronic dance music. After charting the history of live music streaming, the article outlines the positive impacts that live music streaming has on promotion, sales and preservation of rare ethno-folk musics. However, interviews with industry insiders reveal opaque practices, where copyright enforcement is specifically utilised by a few large broadcasters in such a way as to maintain the dominance of their position within the live music streaming industry. A heightened agency in the hands of major corporations over what music audiences can see or hear is also identified. This article concludes that as live music streaming is co-opted across more music genres, these opaque practices will likely transfer across genre boundaries too. As such, it is important for live music streaming to come under further examination within the academy.