4 ms·

Record labels was useful historically, because they handled distribution (physical stores, CDs, different countries). Nowadays, record labels are a PR-agency a

Record labels was useful historically, because they handled distribution (physical stores, CDs, different countries). Nowadays, record labels are a PR-agency at best and should be compensated as such. Artists getting a 10-20% slice[1], the typical revenue-split, sounds like a rip-off to me. A good artist, using Instagram/YouTube/FB/website + Spotify/Rdio for distribution doesn't need much help from a label. Sure, a producer, studio, PR manager and other staff is useful, but that doesn't motivate a 90% cut of profits (in my view). [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/artists-press-for-their-share-1405905178 http://www.wsj.com/articles/artists-press-for-their-share-14...

dpkp 11y ago
But the article is about music publishers, not music labels.
dinkumthinkum 11y ago
I don't that its that simple. For awhile now, YouTubers have "labels" too, they just don't use that term. One of the "labels" was bought for a fairly large sum by Disney.
narrator 11y ago
I listen to a lot of music off the Ektoplazm (http://www.ektoplazm.com/ http://www.ektoplazm.com/) label. It's not all great, but I like about 20% to 30% of and maybe 10% is excellent. It's all released free under a creative commons license. I don't even know what pop music is these days since I don't watch TV or listen to the radio. Music, like a long distance telephone call, is basically free now. Technology has made these things incredibly cheap and the people who used to make money off this stuff have to find ways to restrict the supply using lobbying and lawsuits in order to make a profit. I think other industries are allowed to die a quicker death because they aren't so tied into the big media companies which have a lot of political power.
Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
>Artists getting a 10-20% slice[1], the typical revenue-split, sounds like a rip-off to me. SoundExchange normally pays something like 50% to the copyright holder, 45% to the 'featured artist' and 5% to session musicians and the like for performance royalties (which is what it pays out for). [1] SoundExchange is the organization set up to distribute royalties when performance royalties were brought to the US. They only are paid, and thus pay out for, digital music streaming, including cable TV, streaming radio like Pandora (when using the statutory license), and satellite radio. In the case of an indie group that also owned the copyright, at least 95% of the royalties would flow to the members of the group itself. I should note that there are other organizations like SoundExchange worldwide. PPL [2] is the British equivalent. There are also other organizations that deal with different rights, e.g. rights to the sheet music. The laws regarding each will vary considerably. [1] http://www.soundexchange.com/artist-copyright-owner/digital-royalties/ http://www.soundexchange.com/artist-copyright-owner/digital-... [2] http://www.ppluk.com/ http://www.ppluk.com/
- sandstrom 11y ago
  Interesting, though if I understood it correctly[1] this is for radio (which is different from Spotify and other streaming services, where you control which music you listen to). I.e. the effective royalty is still 10-20% for streaming services. But please enlighten me if I'm wrong. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange
  - theodorton 11y ago
    Gramo and Tono, the Norwegian organizations, collect both a copyright fee and fees from public performance on behalf of performers and song writers. Copyright fees were historically 9 % of revenue from physical and digital copies sold, but I'm not sure it would apply to streaming. Public performance include broadcasting, concerts and playback in public places (shops, restaurants etc.) EDIT: These organizations also collect and distribute from and to other countries.
  - Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
    It only applies to digital streaming and satellite radio, and then only if no direct license is agreed to.
sandworm101 11y ago
Good artists certainly do need PR help. Truly horrible "artists" top the charts every day. Turning music into money and fame has little to do with being a good artist. Studios know how to handle images. They know when and where to push something. They can tell musicians what will sell in 6/12/18 months. For instance, a good song today will still fail if it's theme/tempo/key doesn't mesh with the times or has too many similar competitors on the charts. Many artists have no grasp of such external factors. Studios may be evil, but they specialize in turning the good into the marketable.
- sandstrom 11y ago
  These are good points, I agree (partly). There are probably useful things these record labels do, which I'm not aware of. Still, I'd like to argue that their value-add is much lower today, since they both distribution and marketing/outreach can be handled by the artist herself (more or less).
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    Marketing and outreach are essential, but I would say the studios really do there thing during the creative process. I remember an interview with Christina Aquilera about doing her first music video. The studio had people on set with reports on exactly what highschool girls in the target market were wearing, how they did their make-up. She was meant to look like the pretty girl at school, every school, not a model or red-carpet celeb with professionals doing their hair. That video was the result of hundreds of hours of market research. She was under no illusions about who defined her image. Net result: massive sales and filled stadiums.
jkestner 11y ago
Record labels also act as banks by providing advances.
- sandstrom 11y ago
  At the rate of payday loans? :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payday_loan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payday_loan
golergka 11y ago
Have you talked with a lot of artists about it? Labels are especially helpful now, when PR job is a thankless grunt work involving a lot of know-how. Personally, I've worked with a couple of labels and promotion groups, and the amount of effort label puts into promotion has tremendous impact on the outcome. Basically, there's almost no listeners who actively look for new artists and music that is outside of view of some spot of spotlight — and to get into that spotlight, you have to work. I'm not even talking about publications of scale of Pitchfork or xlr8r now; much smaller blogs get flooded with review requests and demos. But most importantly, the kind of activity you have to do to actively sell yourself on social media is completely psychologically repulsive to a lot of artists. I've talked to a lot of people about it, and most agree that while they could see themselves pushing someone else's creations, doing it for themselves too often pushes one into apathy, self-doubt and depression. The awesome stories that you hear about self-made success suffer from survivorship bias. Labels are there for a reason, and they deserve every penny that they take. Edit: sorry, I missed your link. I get ~80% of my releases; didn't realize you were talking about the big dinosaur labels here.
- bsder 11y ago
  > But most importantly, the kind of activity you have to do to actively sell yourself on social media is completely psychologically repulsive to a lot of artists. And fans, stupidly, sometimes aren't supportive either. There was an article recently talking about some very popular YouTube celebrities who are still waiting tables. And, when they tried to monetize their channel, got sreamed at by lots of fans. It's a no win situation for artists.
  - Johnny555 11y ago
    It sounds more like a problem of trying to make a living in an industry with a very low barrier to entry. Fans expect to get it for free because they know that the only cost their favorite Youtube artist had was a cell phone camera. If their favorite performer can't make a living, then the fans will just move to one of dozens (or hundreds or even thousands) of choices. That same ease of entry that helped the Youtube performer gain thousands of viewers after posting a funny cat video will also let some other Youtube performer do the same thing. It's a different world out there for artists, some for the better (it's easy to record your work and get it out there), some for the worst (it's also easy for thousands of others to do the same so you have to find a way to differentiate yourself).
pbreit 11y ago
You could easily argue the labels create all the value. They can pretty much turn any type of talent into bankable star.
- sosborn 11y ago
  > They can pretty much turn any type of talent into bankable star. For all of their successes they have many, many failures.
- digler999 11y ago
  They "create" it artificially by not allowing radio stations to play music that isn't part of their cartel.
- kalleboo 11y ago
  And in thst world I almost prefer the honesty of the Korean/Japanese music factories where the singers just get salaries instead of this whole system of Hollywood accounting where an artist is just an expense account with all expenses to be paid to their label, never to go into the black...
hkmurakami 11y ago
IIRC labels also carry out talent discovery and growth nurturing, so that probably shouldn't be discounted.
- digler999 11y ago
  Like how they "discovered" the Byrds, then never paid them anything ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_McGuinn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_McGuinn "and that to date [July 11, 2000 ], The Byrds had not received any royalties for their greatest successes, "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn, Turn, Turn" – they only received advances, which were split five ways and were just "a few thousand dollars" per band member"
  - sosborn 11y ago
    Just a note - they didn't write either of the two songs you cited.
    - digler999 11y ago
      Ah, well that makes me feel better. I didn't write any of the songs I downloaded on bittorrent either.

dpkp 11y ago

But the article is about music publishers, not music labels.

dinkumthinkum 11y ago

I don't that its that simple. For awhile now, YouTubers have "labels" too, they just don't use that term. One of the "labels" was bought for a fairly large sum by Disney.

narrator 11y ago

I listen to a lot of music off the Ektoplazm (http://www.ektoplazm.com/ http://www.ektoplazm.com/) label. It's not all great, but I like about 20% to 30% of and maybe 10% is excellent. It's all released free under a creative commons license. I don't even know what pop music is these days since I don't watch TV or listen to the radio. Music, like a long distance telephone call, is basically free now. Technology has made these things incredibly cheap and the people who used to make money off this stuff have to find ways to restrict the supply using lobbying and lawsuits in order to make a profit. I think other industries are allowed to die a quicker death because they aren't so tied into the big media companies which have a lot of political power.

Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago

>Artists getting a 10-20% slice[1], the typical revenue-split, sounds like a rip-off to me. SoundExchange normally pays something like 50% to the copyright holder, 45% to the 'featured artist' and 5% to session musicians and the like for performance royalties (which is what it pays out for). [1] SoundExchange is the organization set up to distribute royalties when performance royalties were brought to the US. They only are paid, and thus pay out for, digital music streaming, including cable TV, streaming radio like Pandora (when using the statutory license), and satellite radio. In the case of an indie group that also owned the copyright, at least 95% of the royalties would flow to the members of the group itself. I should note that there are other organizations like SoundExchange worldwide. PPL [2] is the British equivalent. There are also other organizations that deal with different rights, e.g. rights to the sheet music. The laws regarding each will vary considerably. [1] http://www.soundexchange.com/artist-copyright-owner/digital-royalties/ http://www.soundexchange.com/artist-copyright-owner/digital-... [2] http://www.ppluk.com/ http://www.ppluk.com/

sandstrom 11y ago
Interesting, though if I understood it correctly[1] this is for radio (which is different from Spotify and other streaming services, where you control which music you listen to). I.e. the effective royalty is still 10-20% for streaming services. But please enlighten me if I'm wrong. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange
- theodorton 11y ago
  Gramo and Tono, the Norwegian organizations, collect both a copyright fee and fees from public performance on behalf of performers and song writers. Copyright fees were historically 9 % of revenue from physical and digital copies sold, but I'm not sure it would apply to streaming. Public performance include broadcasting, concerts and playback in public places (shops, restaurants etc.) EDIT: These organizations also collect and distribute from and to other countries.
- Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
  It only applies to digital streaming and satellite radio, and then only if no direct license is agreed to.

sandworm101 11y ago

Good artists certainly do need PR help. Truly horrible "artists" top the charts every day. Turning music into money and fame has little to do with being a good artist. Studios know how to handle images. They know when and where to push something. They can tell musicians what will sell in 6/12/18 months. For instance, a good song today will still fail if it's theme/tempo/key doesn't mesh with the times or has too many similar competitors on the charts. Many artists have no grasp of such external factors. Studios may be evil, but they specialize in turning the good into the marketable.

sandstrom 11y ago
These are good points, I agree (partly). There are probably useful things these record labels do, which I'm not aware of. Still, I'd like to argue that their value-add is much lower today, since they both distribution and marketing/outreach can be handled by the artist herself (more or less).
- sandworm101 11y ago
  Marketing and outreach are essential, but I would say the studios really do there thing during the creative process. I remember an interview with Christina Aquilera about doing her first music video. The studio had people on set with reports on exactly what highschool girls in the target market were wearing, how they did their make-up. She was meant to look like the pretty girl at school, every school, not a model or red-carpet celeb with professionals doing their hair. That video was the result of hundreds of hours of market research. She was under no illusions about who defined her image. Net result: massive sales and filled stadiums.

jkestner 11y ago

Record labels also act as banks by providing advances.

sandstrom 11y ago
At the rate of payday loans? :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payday_loan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payday_loan

golergka 11y ago

Have you talked with a lot of artists about it? Labels are especially helpful now, when PR job is a thankless grunt work involving a lot of know-how. Personally, I've worked with a couple of labels and promotion groups, and the amount of effort label puts into promotion has tremendous impact on the outcome. Basically, there's almost no listeners who actively look for new artists and music that is outside of view of some spot of spotlight — and to get into that spotlight, you have to work. I'm not even talking about publications of scale of Pitchfork or xlr8r now; much smaller blogs get flooded with review requests and demos. But most importantly, the kind of activity you have to do to actively sell yourself on social media is completely psychologically repulsive to a lot of artists. I've talked to a lot of people about it, and most agree that while they could see themselves pushing someone else's creations, doing it for themselves too often pushes one into apathy, self-doubt and depression. The awesome stories that you hear about self-made success suffer from survivorship bias. Labels are there for a reason, and they deserve every penny that they take. Edit: sorry, I missed your link. I get ~80% of my releases; didn't realize you were talking about the big dinosaur labels here.

bsder 11y ago
> But most importantly, the kind of activity you have to do to actively sell yourself on social media is completely psychologically repulsive to a lot of artists. And fans, stupidly, sometimes aren't supportive either. There was an article recently talking about some very popular YouTube celebrities who are still waiting tables. And, when they tried to monetize their channel, got sreamed at by lots of fans. It's a no win situation for artists.
- Johnny555 11y ago
  It sounds more like a problem of trying to make a living in an industry with a very low barrier to entry. Fans expect to get it for free because they know that the only cost their favorite Youtube artist had was a cell phone camera. If their favorite performer can't make a living, then the fans will just move to one of dozens (or hundreds or even thousands) of choices. That same ease of entry that helped the Youtube performer gain thousands of viewers after posting a funny cat video will also let some other Youtube performer do the same thing. It's a different world out there for artists, some for the better (it's easy to record your work and get it out there), some for the worst (it's also easy for thousands of others to do the same so you have to find a way to differentiate yourself).

pbreit 11y ago

You could easily argue the labels create all the value. They can pretty much turn any type of talent into bankable star.

sosborn 11y ago
> They can pretty much turn any type of talent into bankable star. For all of their successes they have many, many failures.
digler999 11y ago
They "create" it artificially by not allowing radio stations to play music that isn't part of their cartel.
kalleboo 11y ago
And in thst world I almost prefer the honesty of the Korean/Japanese music factories where the singers just get salaries instead of this whole system of Hollywood accounting where an artist is just an expense account with all expenses to be paid to their label, never to go into the black...

hkmurakami 11y ago

IIRC labels also carry out talent discovery and growth nurturing, so that probably shouldn't be discounted.

digler999 11y ago
Like how they "discovered" the Byrds, then never paid them anything ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_McGuinn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_McGuinn "and that to date [July 11, 2000 ], The Byrds had not received any royalties for their greatest successes, "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn, Turn, Turn" – they only received advances, which were split five ways and were just "a few thousand dollars" per band member"
- sosborn 11y ago
  Just a note - they didn't write either of the two songs you cited.
  - digler999 11y ago
    Ah, well that makes me feel better. I didn't write any of the songs I downloaded on bittorrent either.