Public lecture: Mapping music: towards a geography of the music industry Anyone going? About the Lecture Tyneside Geographical Society Lecture Mapping music: towards a geography of the music industry PROFESSOR ANDREW LEYSHON Professor of Economic Geography, University of Nottingham In the early twenty-first century the music industry began to suffer from declining sales, negative growth and financial losses. Explanations internal to the music industry identified the cause of the crisis as the rise of Internet piracy. However, the emergence of software formats, such as MP3, and Internet distribution systems is more accurately described as a 'tipping point' that brought into focus a set of deeper structural problems for the industry related to changing forms of popular music consumption. This paper considers the origins of this crisis, speculates on its consequences for the economic geography of the music industry, and how this crisis might be resolved. Andrew Leyshon graduated from the University of Wales with a PhD in Geography. He accepted a lectureship at the University of Hull and later a readership at Bristol. In 1999 he was appointed Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Nottingham. His current research interests include the geographies of the music industry - the ways in which the global music industry is being transformed through the rise of ‘software formats’ (such as MP3), Internet distribution systems and peer-to-peer networks. Recent publications include Money/Space: geographies of monetary transformation (1997, with Nigel Thrift), The Place of Music (1998, edited with Dave Matless and George Revill), and Alternative Economic Spaces (edited with Roger Lee and Colin Williams, Sage, 2003). Books in preparation include Mapping Monetary Networks (with Shaun French, Routledge, 2005), Geographies of the New Economy (edited with Peter Daniels, Jon Beaverstock and Mike Bradshaw, Routledge, 2005), and The Compendium of Economic Geography (edited with Roger Lee, Linda McDowell and Peter Sunley, Sage, 2005). Unless otherwise noted, lectures start at 5.30, last one hour and take place in the Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Building, which sits directly across the road from Haymarket Metro Station. All lectures are free and the public are encouraged to attend. In the event of an over-capacity audience we provide audio-relay to a second lecture theatre.
