Journal of Legal Anthropology

Over the last quarter of a century, the sources of the global recorded music industry's revenues have changed fundamentally, from 100 per cent physical sources (mostly compact discs [CDs]) in 1999 to diversified sources between 2010 and 2015, to mostly intangible sources (mostly streaming) thereafter. However, such global statistics tell us little about developments on the ground in countries with very different socio-economic and cultural circumstances. This special issue examines, from a multidisciplinary and comparative perspective, how technology, particularly the internet, cultural practices and law have interacted in the field of popular music in three African countries (Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa) and Brazil. The socio-economic and legal situations in these countries have been far less studied than those in the Global North. In addition, they are of great importance from an overall perspective because of their population and market size, as well as their ‘cultural influences’ on the regional and even global music scene – suffice it to mention Afrobeats, Bossa Nova and Amapiano. Remarkably, the studies featured in this special issue reveal more similarities than differences.

The booming Nigerian music industry is having a tremendous impact on the global music scene, but at the local level it is beset by difficulties brought about by copyright enforcement. The very vibrancy of this industry is attested through numerous kinds of sonic outputs amidst the ongoing process of digitalisation, especially as evidenced by the current mainstream youth-driven hip-hop hybrid music genre known as ‘Afrobeats’. However, insufficient attention has been given by scholars to the availability, or lack, of spaces for independent and/or emerging artists to create songs outside the tight control of copyright and intellectual property laws. This is especially true for musicians who produce ‘digital mixes’. One issue that comes up rather often in reference to the production and consumption of music in this heavily regulated internet-era context is piracy, which, though ethically problematic, has nevertheless persisted in the absence of meaningful ways to allow independent and emerging artists the freedom to ply their trade.

Cameroon's music sector has been reinvigorated by a new generation of musicians and by locally created and international streaming platforms. Arguing that these streaming platforms have the potential to mitigate the music industry piracy crisis of the 1990s and 2000s, this article examines the recent developments on the Cameroonian music market, the positions of the various stakeholders in the music business, the twenty-first-century copyright legislation concerning music in Cameroon and users’ and musicians’ perception of the platforms. It shows how the crisis arose due to the accessibility of digital gadgets that facilitated practices of copying and sharing that drove music producers into bankruptcy. Although in their daily lives users still prefer to listen to free music, as many have difficulties to afford paying for music streaming, this article argues that in the long run the streaming platforms, if they succeed in persuading users to pay for renting music, will turn out to be more efficient in mitigating informal music-sharing than copyright law and prosecuting the so-called ‘pirates’ in court.

In South Africa, the issue of musicians dying as paupers despite their fame relates to a set of factors, including technological developments that affected traditional modes of content distribution and archaic laws, that predates the internet. Relying on CISAC and IFPI reports, this article finds that while physical copies, which were by far the most rewarding mode of music distribution, have become obsolete, current modes of distribution – downloads and streaming – have diminished revenue for the South African musician. This situation is due to free streaming from platforms that enable user-uploaded content, as well as to negligible payouts from streaming platforms in general. Efforts by the legislature to address musicians’ dwindling income are nevertheless contradictory. Looking at sections of the Copyright Amendment Bill and stakeholder submissions thereto, it is clear that the bill diminishes artists’ economic rights through unmitigated exceptions while leaving the safe harbour provisions unaddressed, which pose a further risk to artists’ income.

The article analyses the digitisation of the music industry in Brazil, taking into consideration the new productive structure that emerges from its ‘creative destruction’. To do so, it presents a historical overview of the record industry in the country and assesses the key components of the structural transformation of its economy in the early twenty-first century, from the sharp decrease in the consumption of CDs and DVDs to the entry of the global streaming services that presented an international modus operandi to the local music industry, or what has come to be known as the celestial jukebox. In the conclusion, it discusses the challenges for the distribution and circulation of music produced in Brazil in the global digital music market.