The Music Business and Recording Industry is a comprehensive music business textbook focused on the three income streams in the music industry: music publishing, live entertainment, and recordings. The book provides a sound foundation for understanding key issues, while presenting the latest research in the field. It covers the changes in the industry brought about by the digital age, such as changing methods of distributing and accessing music and new approaches in marketing with the Internet and mobile applications. New developments in copyright law are also examined, along with the global and regional differences in the music business.

The Recording Industry presents a brief but comprehensive examination of how records are made, marketed, and sold. The book opens with an overview of popular music and its place in American society, along with descriptions of key players in the recording industry. In the book's second part, the making of a recording is traced from production through marketing and retail sales. Finally, in Part III, legal issues, including copyright and problems of piracy, are addressed.
The new edition takes into account the massive changes in the recording industry occurring today due to the revolution of music on the web. This new reality informs all parts of the second edition, from issues of production and distribution to legal issues.