There are four major record companies, namely Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group whom in the aggregate have an 88% market share worldwide. Their focus continues to be on the management of their respective roster of artists by way of promoting and releasing CD’s, touring and merchandising. It is unusual for any of these major record companies to release a compilation CD, much less one comprised of songs from competing record companies. On account of their size and structure, they don’t have the ability to be nimble. 

With the advent of digital and consequentially file-sharing, piracy continues to be a concern for the music industry. Fortunately, more effective copyright laws in the United States and internationally and the now ubiquitous iTunes, which has become the world’s biggest retailer of music, have curbed piracy significantly.

While the music market has seen some attrition in the past decade, 400 million CD’s were sold in the United States in 2010 and digital download has taken up much of the slack. C3 is primarily targeting baby boomers, who continue to be music enthusiasts-(the Starbucks/Whole Foods crowd) and number in the tens of millions in the United States. On account of the major record companies’ myopic focus, baby boomers have been ignored by the industry for a number of years, which may partially explain the attrition.

Perhaps, C3’s greatest competitive advantages are that it’s independent, unencumbered by overhead and bureaucracy. These attributes enable it to be opportunistic, operate efficiently and employ innovative sales and marketing initiatives that may otherwise be an imposition for the major record companies. In fact, as evidenced by Universal Music and Sony Music pursuing C3, it’s an involuntary admission on their part of their shortcomings and recognition that such an endeavor would be better managed by a company who is nimble and unencumbered.