Before recorded music, composers and singers were hired by kings, queens, aristocrats, churches and opera houses to perform and write songs for them. Wolgang Amadeus Mozart and Haydn were among the first to perform their music for the general public. These early concerts were more about the spectacle of the show than just the music. In "Music Listening Today" by Charles Hoffer, the author writes that early concerts included "songs, dances, recitations, card tricks and even balancing acts." People couldn't take the music home with them.
The first method to allow the public to experience the same music repeatedly was sheet music. Tin Pan Alley grew out of the slew of music publishers who set up shop between Sixth Avenue and Broadway in Manhattan, New York. They sold sheet music for which unregulated copyright control ran rampant. Publishers stole songs from each other. Toward the end of the century, stronger copyright laws forced songwriters, publishers and lyricists to consolidate their efforts and form big music houses.
Popularity of sheet music was replaced by recorded music. In the late 1800s, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, which would impact the music industry in the early 1900s. In "The History and Tradition of Jazz," Thomas E. Larson says recorded music created 600 radio stations between 1920 and 1924, and people could stay home and listen rather than go out for live performances. Radio opened doors for bands that could not get into concert halls to perform their music. Record labels were created to take advantage of the growing interest of recorded music.
The formats for recorded music created in the 1900s were quickly surpassed by digital downloads with the invention of the personal computer, digital recording and the Internet. File sharing of digital downloads crippled the music industry that had built itself up around selling and distributing recorded music. As of 2010, the music industry has yet to re-invent itself as it did with the introduction of sheet music and radio.
The future of the music industry is unknown even to the major record labels. Record labels will need to rely on the publishing rights of the music that they own to survive. Musicians have a clean slate. Musician and activist John Mellencamp writes in a Huffington Post article: "The old rules and constraints that had governed what was once considered a legitimate artist are no longer valid. If you want a better world it starts with you and the things you say and do."