The recording industry has been a major focus of interest for cultural commentators throughout the twenty-first century. As the first major content industry to have its production and distribution patterns radically disturbed by the internet, the recording industry's content, attitudes and practices have regularly been under the microscope. This book attempts to offer a broader and less Anglocentric understanding of the recording industry. Seven detailed case studies of different national recording industries illustrate the idea that the recording industry is not one thing but is, rather, a series of recording industries, locally organised and locally focused, both structured by and structuring the international industry.