Record Labels

What is a record label?• A record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music

recordings and music videos.

• A record company signs an act and put them in the studio to record songs. They then make copies of the master recording and ship it to a distributor. The distributor is a wholesaler who then sells the CDs to retail outlets.

• The record company then pumps money into marketing by advertising and promoting the music with hopes of selling records and digital downloads through online distributors such as iTunes & Amazon.

Independent or major?• Record labels may be small, localized, and "independent" ("indie"), or they may be part of a

large international media group.• As of 2012 there are only three labels that can be referred to as "major labels". • The three labels classed as major are;• Universal Music Group • Sony Music Entertainment• Warner Music Group

• As the genre I am doing is R&B it will be better for my artist to be signed to a major label such as Universal Music group, I would want this as my artist would need to backing for them to be able to produce music to fit in the R&B genre and to be also be able to produce music videos.

• Also having a major label this would help my artist to become a more of a world wide artist as the label would be able to support them better then an independent label. Being world wide is important of an R&B artists success.

What label suits my artist?• As my artist is an R&B artist being on a label like Columbia (part of Sony Music

Entertainment), Universal or Roc Nation (part of Sony Music Entertainment). My artist will fit in well with these labels as they have successfully distributed R&B records in the past and I feel they would be able to do the same for my artist just like they did for Beyoncé with Columbia, she is now one of the biggest pop stars in the world. But as this is a label with a lot of artist signed to it with multiple different genres, it may be hard for my artist to get attention and support from the label as they will be putting there time and effort into main artist such as Beyoncé, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Kings of Leon.

• Another label that will suit my artist would be Roc Nation they have produced artist such as Rihanna and Rita Ora. They have a very large following with Rihanna being one of the biggest pop stars in the world and Rita Ora on her way to being coming a very well known pop star. I feel as if Roc Nation would suit my artist as my artist is young and fresh and Roc Nation is filled with young talent similar to my artist therefore it will suit them well.

• Roc nation was founded my Jay-Z and originated from the record label Roc'a'fella records. Roc-A-Fella Records was a record label founded by Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Damon "Dame" Dash, and Kareem "Biggs" Burke. It operated as a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, and was distributed by The Island Def Jam Music Group.Howeverthelabelisnow Defunct and in 2008 Jay Z teamed with live nation to create the label Roc Nation with Sony Music Entertainment distributing all the music, however in 2013 Jay -Z signed a deal with Universal Music Group for them the be the ones who distribute products from the Roc Nation label making it a subsidiary of Universal a major record label. 

Copyright • The exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film,

or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorise others to do the same.

• For example record labels cant take another artists music and give it to one of there artists without permission and pass it off as there own. Also if an artist wants to do a cover of another artists song they have to have permission of that artist or record label to cover the song if they wish to make money of it. The label will either ask for a share of the profits that artist makes from covering the song. They would most likely do this my asking for a percentage of money made from each purchase of the song. They could also just ask for an outright amount of money at the start for the use of the song 

• As I will be taking another artist song i will have to ask the record label for permission to do so, i will have to state that i will not be using it to make money as that will be against the copyright and i will not be able to do this.