Friday, May 13, 2016

Signing With A Canadian Record Label

By Linda Williams


A record label is generally defined as a brand associated with marketing of music and videos. It can also be looked at as a company that publishes and manages brands and trademarks, a record label is also tasked with enforcement of copyright for sound recording as well as video, and they market and distribute the music as well. A Canadian record label is not different at all, it performs the same tasks.

Knowing the different categories of record labels is a must do thing for an artist before settling down for a certain company. The different kinds of companies have different term and different way of operating. It is advisable that an artist consults with his or her legal advisers to ensure that the choice will be legally bidding and stable thus ensuring smooth running.

There exist three major categories of record brands. One of them is known as major, the second one is known as major-minor and the last is known as independent. A major label is associated with an international brand name, and there are four known such international labels. BMG, Universal Music Group, SONY and Warner Music Group are the big four labels that a major uses to distribute its products.

Mini-majors are medium sized companies which are co-owned by the major brands. Mini-majors distribute through the big four and are affiliated to them. Finally independent labels are small types of companies. They do their distribution on their own. They are not affiliated to any of the big international companies nor are they associated with the Mini-majors.

The relationship between the artist and his label is often strained. An artist would prefer to keep his or her art intact. Alterations are not supposed to be made by anybody else. Many companies on the other hand find it necessary to make some change to the work, say changing the title in order to increase the chances of selling the art more efficiently. If these changes are not done after good consultation and agreement between the company and artist, conflicts usually arise. It is thus very important to have a bidding contract as you record with a certain brand.

Many artist signing companies have experienced loss of clients or artists due to the emergence of easy ways of sharing files online such as iTunes, YouTube and tubidy. Most artists are able to sale their work and distribute it through different websites that are much easy and cheap to create.

Labels have found new techniques of remaining useful and operational, because although the internet is a cheap way of distributing the music recording and videos, the returns are little. Especially when dealing with well established artists. They sign new deals with their artists that are friendly and more profitable.

An artist is thus required to conduct good research before settling for a given company to handle his or her work. The success of the artist will directly depend on how established and experienced a recording company has been. Past experiences by artists can help when making a decision on which signing company to go with.




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