Global Expansion of Music Streaming

A case-study on Deezer’s expansion into the Middle East

Partial reprint: this dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master’s of Ethnomusicology of SOAS, University of London, and is protected under corporate NDA; please email jjpalliere (at) yahoo (dot) com for full version.

Introduction

In the last decade, music streaming services (DSPs) have exploded into a mediating role in musical processes, positioning themselves primarily between artists and consumers. This unique market position allows companies to connect with a great number of potential paying consumers, a significant revenue source through which they shape musical markets. As DSPs expand internationally, it is important to consider their impacts on musical production and the artists whose music they distribute. By scrutinizing the distribution of financial resources between artists and DSPs, it is possible to understand the impacts of these companies on the activities of financially-independent artists and the larger collectives with which they engage. To concretize this process, I take an example of rapid DSP expansion in a new region. In 2018, Deezer launched in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), an area previously unaffected by music streaming. On the production side, I focus on financially-independent artists in Beirut, examining the complex relationships they form with each other and external actors within the music industries.

Throughout this work, I make three key observations. First, corporate growth is incongruent with the local particularities of independent artists. Corporations attempt to reach the greatest number of listeners with the least amount of expenditure/re-investment, thereby translating capital away from the local. Second, in the pursuit of greater audiences, corporations privilege popular artists to the detriment of new, local talent, thus reifying a pop/indie split in the music industries. This split has aesthetic and political implications, as certain musical activities are pushed out of the markets and others privileged. Third, market dynamics impact the production of music and the livelihoods of its artists in a way that is unsustainable in the long term. Each of these points is reinforced throughout the three major sections of this thesis:

In part one, I introduce independent artists in Lebanon. I begin by considering their growth within the Beirut scene. In Beirut, clubs are the site of connection between artists and listeners, serving as catalysts to community and audience building. Over the last two decades, Beirut clubs have competed for clientele by hosting bigger and bigger parties, thus pushing aside the original, local scene in favor of record-breaking international acts. In this way, I will introduce the ideas of unsustainable growth and trace its impacts on the local artists in Beirut.

In part two, I introduce Deezer and it’s corporate structure. I describe Deezer’s strategy for growth, capital accumulation, primarily focusing on artists partnerships. In my discussion of artist partnerships, I highlight how Deezer employs an “artist-centered” branding strategy to appeal to independent artists. These brand efforts, which help translate artist fans into platform users, serve stringent profit demands from shareholders and major labels. DSPs employ several tools in order to accumulate capital, enacting incongruences which privilege the popular record industries over independent artists. As such, I will describe how DSPs concentrate audiences and engage them through active curation — a form of musical gatekeeping which disarticulates new or “risky” independent artists.

In part three, I weave together the two previous sections, making explicit connections and contradictions between the actors involved. I group together reflections around piracy, remuneration, popularization, copyright, and DSP expansion. The opposing views between DSP employees and independent artists highlight stark differences in action-orientation — in their ability to generate profits. Artists in Lebanon face a variety of actors who direct capital flows away from local music production, ultimately resulting in artists’ economic exclusion. I, then, concretize the discussion by connecting disparate access to capital in the music industries with Lebanon’s financial crisis, exemplifying the effects of unidirectional capital flow.

In the conclusion section, I contextualize these opposing perspectives as productive sites for communication. I recount moments of exchange in order to reinforce the potential for alternatives. Confronting the missed connections from part three draws attention to opportunities for mutual growth and the support of local artistic diversity.

Defining the Terrain

This section serves as an extended literature review through which I make explicit the tools of my analysis. First, I present music as a nexus for identity and economy. Musical and economic activity shapes individual and group identities. I introduce basic actor groups in the music industries and their attempts to commodify music. Next, I convey how music streaming generates value via mechanisms of association: matching producers and consumers across a multi-sided market (the streaming platform). As such, streaming services interact with several key industry interests as they enact their primary goal of capital accumulation. Finally, I root these actor groups within a specific context: Deezer’s expansion into the MENA.

Identity and Economics

Founding my thinking in ethnomusicology, I unite tools from identity theory and economic theory. Theories of identity provide the foundations through which I group individuals into actor groups (DSP employees and independent artists). These theoretical tools describe music’s role in mediating individual and social (inter)action. Economic theory, in turn, helps to understand how those interactions translate across both institutions and forms of capital (describing music’s behavior as a commodity).

This paper follows Tia DeNora’s seminal book, Music in Everyday Life (2000). DeNora emphasizes the need to make explicit music’s connections to everyday life; it’s ability to act on listeners and practitioners. In the final chapter, DeNora links musical aesthetics with ethical behavior, describing how control over music (issues of access or censorship) inherently implies a power over others. My dissertation strives to extrapolate on DeNora’s work in the context of digital streaming. I examine how music affords specific action-orientations in today’s digital streaming industry.

To describe music-industry connections, I begin by defining individuals in communities of actors. Following Brubaker and Cooper, this identification assumes individuals “belonging to a distinctive, bounded group, involving both a felt solidarity or oneness with fellow group members and a felt difference from [others]” (Brubaker and Cooper 2000, 19). The two primary groups that I define in this thesis — DSPs and independent artists — feature both opposition and internal solidarity. I also draw on Hall and du Gay (2011), who discern agency as another facet of group identification. Agency refers to the specific collection of possible actions available to an individual; “the possibilities of where and how specific vectors of influence can … be placed“ (Hall and du Gay 2011, 10). Possibilities for action, which help define groups, also interface between economic and identity theory. Access to capital, for example, distinguishes corporate employees and independent artists via their ability for action (primarily, their ability to accumulate more capital).

Returning to DeNora’s call to extrapolate music’s role in shaping interactions, Georgina Born (2011) offers a framework for analyzing music’s ability to materialize identity. By defining, circulating, and affecting musical meanings, identities are inhabited and institutionalized. Aesthetic trends in music (genres, in her paper) become active identifiers for specific groups, suggesting associations and potentials for action (inherent to identities). Musical aesthetics play a key role in identifying various artists in this paper. Kay Shelemay, who writes on musical communities, describes how music “constitutes a lively process driving social change and transforms aspects of exclusion and inclusion that have reshaped community constitution and power structures“ (Shelemay 2011, 12). In other words, meaning and identity standards are continuously maintained through musical practices, arising through struggles for, and against, specific communally-held standards. I am inspired by Xingling Li’s account of these dynamics in the context of American rap music and homosexuality. Li documents the processes of social categorization in rap music, demonstrating how power (via financial and social capital) is conferred to those who abide by delimited social categories. I will explore how market categorization (an act of identification) made by streaming services is a tool for identity persuasion and control. Struggles for group definition and standards will become more apparent in the alternative models at the end of this paper. The arc of this thesis will be to complicate such standards in order to assess the actions that give rise to them.

Moving into economic theory, it is crucial to understand how corporations interact with music in the accumulation of capital and the creation of standards. Shoshanna Zuboff’s book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019), serves as an extended literature review on the evolution of power in tech companies. Zuboff explores how data processing techniques in user interactions form the backbone of a new market ideology, surveillance capitalism. Zuboff, drawing on Foucault, describes how documenting biological flows in the digital realm (i.e. data) serves to strategize methods for influence. Data-gathering practices are ubiquitous across all tiers of the music industries (i.e. social media statistics), and serve as tools for strategizing growth. On music applications, interactions with digital music are mined for data, rendering music a tool in the commodification of users (Drott, 2018; Haggerty and Ericson, 2000). In Platform Capitalism, Srnicek contextualizes surveillance capitalism within the economics of digital platforms. Srnicek describes the evolution of platforms, their “rhizomatic expansion” (Srnicek 2017, 103), and their impacts on laborers (their conversion into “surplus populations”, ibid., 86). [For a discussion on surplus populations in music, see Fake Streams, Listening Bots, and Click Farms (Drott, 2020).] In this thesis, I describe all three in the context of music platforms. Through growth strategies, corporations can exercise control through suggestions and persuasions, thus shaping action possibilities (i.e. agencies) of others towards normalized ontological categories (i.e. groups) (Cheney-Lippold 2011; Morris and Powers 2015; Prey 2018; Gillespie 2013). In these ways, economic activity and identity shaping are interwoven within the streaming industries.

Music Industries

In considering the impacts of platforms on local artistic production, the central theme in this thesis, I draw on music- and platform-related economic theories, beginning with literature on the music industries. Several authors consider the nature of the music industries (Sterne 2014; Williamson & Cloonan 2007; Anderton 2012; Frith 2001): “The music industries are, at the simplest level, people being industrious with music” (Anderton 2012, 13). The music industries can be effectively considered as a network of actors (Frith 2001, Williamson & Cloonan 2007). Williamson & Cloonan write that “the term ‘music industry’ disguises conflict within the industries. It assumes the common interest of musician and label, of promoter and venue, and of organisations which are in daily competition with each other” (Williamson & Cloonan 2007, 316). In acknowledgement of this diversity, this paper makes explicit the various industry interests and their antagonisms.

“One useful way to understand the activities of a business … is to examine its organizational structure” (Anderton 2012, 5). Here, I introduce several structures in the streaming and record industries in order to establish a foundation for the rest of the thesis. My central focus is on streaming services (DSPs such as Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Anghami, etc.) and their primary content suppliers, artists. Music streaming is the most prominent form of music consumption today (Autio 2019; IFPI Global Music Report; British Phonographic Industry 2021). In an attempt at market dominance, streaming platforms compete with one another across international markets. [Personal conversation with Allen Bargfrede, music industries and legal consultant.] DSPs expand to new territories almost each year (Jammot 2020 on Apple Music expansion; Spotify 2021 on their own expansion; Reuters 2011 on Deezer’s very early expansion). Of all the DSPs, Deezer opted to capture international markets before its competitors. In 2011, CEO Axel Dauchez stated: “we aim to sign global licensing deals, without the U.S. or Japan, so we can roll out in dozens of countries quickly” (Reuters 2011).

The platformization of music has had profound effects on musicians and the music they produce (Nieborg and Poll, 2018). DSPs command significant wealth and a strategic position between various market actors, Robert Prey considers the power they wield: “platformization as “power” is best understood as an effect of certain conflicted processes, for which platforms have varying degrees of control over” (Prey 2020, 8). As such, other entities in the music industries are just as important in understanding the industry revolution brought on by DSPs. In the following paragraphs, I introduce the relevant actor groups in this thesis:

First, streaming services are digital platforms through which users can access a vast database of musical recordings, either with ads (“Freemium”) or for a monthly subscription (“Premium”). Artists provide their music through distribution deals with major labels or aggregators. As specific tracks are played, portions of subscriptions and ad revenues are paid back to the labels/aggregators and distributed across the rights holders (artists).

Second, I define independent artists as artists who do not receive corporate investment or funding, and who own the majority rights to their discographies (the most common type of artist). Due to their limited mobility, independent artists have few but strong local ties. Most artists begin their careers in clubs or live venues. While clubs rarely interact with either DSPs or major labels, they follow the same logics of capital accumulation and, in the accounts that follow, track similar developments as DSPs.

Third, because DSPs host records, they intersect with the major actors in the record industry: record labels. Record labels are often responsible for investing in artist products. As such, labels own part or all of the creative output (copyright) and any revenues generated. Historically, record labels are the most concentrated wealth structures in the music industry. Today there are three major labels (Sony, Warner, and Universal), which, together, account for two thirds of all music sold (Resnikoff 2017). As such, major labels constitute an important interest within DSP activities.

The primary antagonism that I introduce in the music industries, hinted at throughout this section, is the large gap between capital commanded by major corporations (such as DSPs) and independent artists (Drott 2020). In order to investigate incongruences in capital flows, it is necessary to establish how music derives value. Will Straw (2002) describes how musical commodities only derive value through an unending source of novel experiences whose diversity is pacified within familiar and intelligible brands. Drawing on Kopytoff (1986), Straw (2000) discusses branded musical collections, such as those provided by DSPs, as a way of achieving commodity stability. DSPs create such branded collections, and commodity value, through content curation — the personalized algorithmic recommendations characteristic of DSPs (Drott 2018). Streaming services must, therefore, attract a large number of individual users and tracks which they then match together based on shared attributes. This growth-before-profit strategy thrives off democratizing rhetoric: DSPs appeal to artists and their fans by providing a platform which is decentralized, accessible, and distributes rewards. [All three conditions for democratization are offered by Galuszka (2012).] However, as Eric Drott explains, “the removal of barriers to entry brought about by music’s move online has had the paradoxical effect of making musicians’ work both more accessible and less likely of being accessed” (Drott, 2020). In other words, increasing the supply of musical content devalues musical creative labour. Srnicek, in his book on platform capitalism, describes how “growth before profit” models are prone to creating low-wage, no-benefits surplus populations; e.g. artists (Srnicek 2017). [Keith Negus (2019) argues that DSPs, in stripping music of its physical parts, have reduced the value of musical commodities.] Finally, Frith’s (2001)

description of corporate behaviors continues to persist: “for the last twenty years the corporate strategy for avoiding risk has been to ensure that the necessary gambles are taken by other people.” Here, “other people” primarily refers to independent artists: “the biggest financial burden in the development of new talent is carried by the musicians themselves” (Scherzinger 2005). All together, these processes demonstrate how musical creation and its artists serve corporate goals of capital accumulation.

Defining the Particular

Thus far, all of these analyses are simply interpretative tools in understanding the impacts of DSP expansion. In order to move beyond generalities, it is necessary to root my analysis within local case-studies. I draw on work from media studies in negotiating global theories with local practices. Recent literature in media studies denounces the homogenizing forces offered by globalization and media imperialism (Servaes and Lie 2003; Kraidy 2002). Instead, “the global has to be ground in the local” (Servaes and Lie 2010, 20). [Two case-studies reify the importance of local studies in the field of Information and Communications Technologies (Zhang 2020; Oreglia 2014).] In music, several authors analyse world music in dismantling concepts of globalization (Stokes 2004; White 2011). In his 2016 case-study, Lysloff, drawing on social theorist Anna Tsing, describes that “flows come from somewhere, initiated by someone, some kind of community, some government office, some transnational business or organization” (Lysloff 2016, 488). Even digital streaming necessitates the study of locales, as DSPs have been shown to increase user engagement with local musical communities (Way, 2020). I introduce my two primary case-study groups in the following paragraphs: Deezer and Beirut-based artists.

The case-study I investigate in this thesis is Deezer’s expansion into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). After a series of discussions and presentations, Deezer agreed to grant me access to corporate expansion activities in the MENA region (under NDA). In 2018, Deezer launched their expansion into the MENA region. Setting up a major office in Dubai, UAE, the company began hiring local musical, marketing, and legal experts from around the region. During that same year, Spotify also launched its MENA expansion. Prior to 2018, streaming listening comprised less than 7% of the total MENA market (Warner et al. 2021). Given the relative absence of streaming services in the MENA, the synchronous arrival of several DSPs provides a unique opportunity to consider the effects of DSP expansion on artists in the region.

For several reasons, Lebanon is a dynamic place in which to explore artist-DSP interactions: 1) independent artists in Beirut are able to work easily relative to other countries and Lebanon is widely-known for producing pan-Arabic popular artists (see Section 1, popular music); 2) Lebanon is the birthplace of the MENA’s first streaming service, Anghami — Deezer’s primary competitor; 3) Lebanon is in complete financial collapse, a situation which lays bare the disparities in capital access/flows across independents and large corporations; and 4) Lebanon has strong historical ties with both France and the USA, through which I was able to easily conduct interviews.

Approach

In this section, I describe my approach to this study and my position within the research. I introduce my methods for gathering data, issues of textual transcription, and my own, subjective position within this study. It is from this approach that the rest of the thesis follows.

Actor-Network Theory

I draw on Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as inspiration for my approach to this study. Latour outlines a researcher’s approach in three moves. In the first move, the researcher must describe the long chains of actors which link sites to one another, forgoing the essentialisms afforded by overarching structures (general theories). Instead, the researcher must commit to the productive sites of action, which are always local and never “bigger” than anything else. In the second move, the researcher must redistribute the “local” from the first move into a series of trans-local actions; a composite assemblage of external media which form the local and subjectify an individual. In the third move, the researcher must describe how these knotted locales connect to one another via standards — rarefied connectors which allow separate locales to be commensurable/compared (social categories, for example, are a kind of standard).

In this thesis, I will introduce several accounts from individuals in the music industries and the objects they circulate. Through these accounts, I attempt to sketch connections which exist between these individuals. I begin, in the first section, by describing the connections that both stem from and subjectify independent artists in Beirut. Similarly, in the second section, I describe how Deezer (and major labels) shape themselves in a new region through forging many new connections. In the third section, I connect these two groups, describing agreements and contradictions between them. A useful notion that Latour presents is the notion of plasma; the potentials of connection which do not yet exist (or are not standardized). It is towards the end of this paper that I reinterpret the contradictions in my accounts as missed connections which suggest possibilities for productive connections. In other words, misunderstandings across industry actors hint at the possibility for alternative business models.

Access and Text

This thesis is built primarily upon interviews. Because I am concerned with the perspectives of others — and their perceived mobility — I focus primarily on verbal accounts. As this research occurred during the pandemic, I connected with individuals online via email, LinkedIn, or Instagram to schedule a 1-hour call. Other materials, such as online news articles and financial reports, were drawn upon as data supplements.

Oral accounts form the backbone of this thesis. The entirety of my interviews were one-on-one discussions done over the phone. In translating these accounts to text, certain distortions are inevitable. Written accounts imbue a fixity and certainty that was rarely present in discussion. With so little space to fit all of these conversations, I find it important to recall the ambiguity and the anxiety present in so many of these conversations.

As a French-American inquiring into the lives of many Lebanese, I was aware of the parallels between my interactions and recurring international movements — the continuous incursions of French and American interests (of which Deezer is a very active example). I do not speak Arabic, so each discussion is in either English or French. Any corrections I make to the text are exclusively to ensure reader comprehension; I provide the translations to passages in French in the footnotes. The interviewees all speak within a range of situations that supplement the stories they shared. How much detail I communicate of their personal lives is an issue inherent in the authorship of this text. I have decided to privilege privacy; my goal here is not to reproduce orality, but to construct a coherent discourse from the voices of individuals; to draw a line through this rhizomatic collection of actor-networks. [This paragraph draws heavily from Alessandro Portelli’s introduction in, “They Say in Harlan County”] This thesis is largely made up of the words of others, and so I write this intentionally for all involved.

My Orientation

It is through my interaction with others, my personal interests/biases, and the very act of writing which is responsible for the form of this account. As such, my own biases necessarily shape the research I present below. My nationalities and my location were glaringly apparent during my interviews with Beirut artists and Deezer MENA’s corporate employees. I am a French-American researching out of Paris (where Deezer is headquartered). To Lebanese artists, I was synonymous with Western corporate colonialism. However, I also come to this research primarily as an independent musician and artist. In this way, I also shared their experiences. All of these experiences form the biases I hold and scrutinize. I draw on my own dispositions as a source of productive inspiration, using them as leads to more deeply probe into this subject. In the end, I ask the reader to recall that this thesis is just one understanding — my own way of understanding a complex situation and the perspectives of the others.

…

The rest of this thesis is currently protected under NDA; please email jjpalliere (at) yahoo (dot) com for full version.

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