a wee bit about the music industry, from a college essay i wrote

Record company – record companies sign artists and then finance them to make sound recordings of intellectual properties they have written. The record company then seeks to exsanguinate these recordings by duplicating and manufacturing delivery mechanisms (cd’s, downloads, vinyl, etc ) and distributing them to retail for the general public.

Major record company – a major record label is defined by the fact that has all departments required in the process of releasing records. It has one in particular that defines it as a major – it has its own distribution! The other requirement of a major is that it can release records internationally.

Current major labels are:

• Universal Music Group (France based) — 31.71% [1]
• Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Japan/Germany based) — 25.61% (13.83% Sony, 11.78% BMG) [2]
• Warner Music Group (USA based) — 15% [3]
• EMI Group (UK based) — 9.55% [4]

The EU’s Court of First Instance has overturned 2004’s Sony/BMG merger in July 2006 .The deal was approved on July 18, 2004 after Commission regulators decided that the new company would not pose any antitrust problems. That decision was challenged in December 2004 by impala, an association of independent music labels. [5]

They argued that the merger possed obvious threats to competition, since it would now put the majority of the world’s music sales into the hands of two companies (Sony BMG and Universal). The Court of First Instance sided with Impala, telling the Commission that its initial decision had not lived up to the “requisite legal standard” and that its analysis of market conditions was flawed. [6]

The decision means that Sony BMG will have to apply to the Commission once more for approval (even though the companies have already merged). If the Commission now decides against the merger, the company would be forced to split. The decision also has implications for the possible merger between Warner and EMI, which have been trying to form a third megalabel that could counter Sony BMG and Universal. Such a merger now looks less likely in the EU. [7]

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department gave antitrust approval to Universal Music Group’s planned acquisition of BMG Music Publishing for US$2.09 billion in November 2006. The deal must now receive approval from European regulators to become final. BMG - owned by German media company Bertelsmann AG - owns the rights to more than a million songs by contemporary recording artists such as Nelly, Maroon 5 and Coldplay, as well as classic hits by the Beach Boys, Barry Manilow and other entertainers. [8]

Independent / Indie labels

Eg roadrunner, nuclear blast.

Independent record labels are so called not because of the genre or style of music the release or because they are independent of the ‘majors’ but because they use independent distributors to distribute their music.

Dot com record companies

Aggregators

There is no such thing as an internet record label – yet!

Because at the moment they are only aggregators. They behave like major record labels but they do not own the sound recording. However it is only a matter of time before the aggregators look to earn and own more for their trouble and soon they will try to own sound recordings and maybe even sign artists

Publishing houses

before a song is recorded it must be written, while a record label could own different versions of the same song, a publisher could own the song itself. This is known as the Intellectual Property.

Record company owns sound recordings

Publishers own published and copyrighted works, known as IP

Record companies own sound recordings arranged by the producer (arranger)

Publishers own IP on behalf of the songwriters (composers and authors )

A publishers task is threefold

1) to copyright and protect an artists published works

2) to take legal action if these copyrights are infringed

3) to exploit the IP they own – eg getting other bands to do ‘cover versions’ of the song, selling the musical notation in sheet music form, radio; TV and online advertisements, theme music for TV/radio series and film soundtracks (collectively known as synchronisation)

[1] Source: wikipedia.org

[2] Source: wikipedia.org

[3] Source: wikipedia.org

[4] Source: wikipedia.org

[5] Source: artstechnica.com

[6] Source: artstechnica.com

[7] Source: artstechnica.com

[8] Source: jam.canoe.ca

Blogged with the Flock Browser