What Big Tech's Quarterly Reports Say About The Future Of Music

Robot guitarist "Mach" and a robot drummer "Ashura", members of a robot rock band "Z-Machines", perform music at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. Robot guitarist "Mach" and a robot drummer "Ashura", members of a robot rock band "Z-Machines", perform music at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. Our relationships with and access to music lie between rocks and hard places; the rocks that own it, the hard places that distribute it to us. Those relationships are constantly evolving, and to figure out what might come next, we've combed through the recent earnings statements of some of the largest record labels and tech companies to reveal how they're preparing for 2017 and beyond. Musicians and labels have had to adjust to a world where they hold less control, because of the ways we listen now.