Related pages: DIY and Indie
Even if you release your own records and downloads it helps to know how traditional major and independent labels work. The majors play a central role in mass media, distribution and retail. Traditional publishers can be useful for DIY writers, if only for royalty administration.
20th Century artists and writers reached beyond theatre and music hall to the mass market through publishing and recording. This made publishers and labels central to modern mainstream music.
Record companies and publishers dominated the music business in the 20th Century. At first, record companies controlled recording and sales by owning technology patents. After World War Two they lost their lead in recording technology and began competing with each other for popular artists and popular songs. They switched to industry standard recording media which enabled the growth of independent record labels. A&R men (Artists and Repertoire) working for record companies matched artists with repertoire from music publishers. Eventually the record companies outsourced recording technology entirely. Now, labels and publishers still dominate the music industry but they are simply two service suppliers to the artist, among many others.
| A note about the meaning of record companies and record labels A record company is a business which deals in recordings (e.g. EMI). A record label is a unit within the company which handles a particular catalogue or repertoire (e.g. Blue Note). A label can specialise in a genre or country, or sometimes just the project of a particular label head. A single record company can run many labels. In practice the terms record company and label are often used loosely to mean the same thing. |
Publishers originally sold printed music but ended up dealing mainly in the publishing copyright. Record labels still sell significant numbers of records but increasingly rely on the recording copyright.
Record companies originally made and sold recordings—today their business is based on recording copyrights. They are no longer in the business of making records themselves. The role of record companies today is discussed in Get signed, get singed and The damage done.
We normally expect to see CDs on the same label that signed the artist but it isn’t always that simple. Record labels frequently grant exclusive or non-exclusive licenses to other labels in their own territory or other territories. This means an artist signed by one label can appear on another. An artist on a major label in one territory might even appear on an independent label elsewhere.
Record labels fall roughly into two groups: the majors and independents. These figures don’t change much from year to year.
Record sales figures usually come from the RIAA (USA), BPI (UK), OCC (UK) or other official bodies. These numbers don’t include DIY releases that bypass mainstream distribution and retail channels (e.g. CDs sold at gigs or from unsigned artist web sites).
Some record label earnings are described in Royalties and licenses and Collection societies.
Major record labels have the largest catalogues of recording rights (by historical mergers and acquisition of independent labels). Most of them have publishing companies and all control distribution and new media interests.
The majors make less than 1 in 5 of all controlled releases, and sell about 70% of recorded music worldwide. The rest is sold by the independents.
| Major record company | Main labels, imprints and groups | Includes / excludes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Mercury, Island DefJam (Lost Highway, Roadrunner), Interscope Geffen A&M, MCA, Verve (GRP, Impulse!), Geffen, Universal Classics (Decca, Philips, Deutsche Grammaphon) | Includes: Universal Music Publishing |
| 2 |  | Columbia, Epic, Legacy, Jive, Arista, RCA, Zomba, La Face | Excludes: BMG Music Publishing • separate subsidiary of Vivendi Universal Sony/ATV Music Publishing • separate subsidiary of Sony |
| 3 |  | Capitol, Virgin, Blue Note, Chrysalis, Parlophone, Mute, Relentless, Now!, Heavenly, Positiva, Angel, ForeFront, Back Porch, Sparrow, Astralwerks | Includes: EMI Music Publishing Abbey Road studios |
| 4 |  | Warner (Reprise, Sire, Maverick, World, Nonesuch), Atlantic (Elektra, Bad Boy, Lava), Rhino, East West, Word Group, Cordless, Asylum | Includes: Warner/Chappel Music Inc. distribution (ADA, WEA), |
Within each major record company, label groups and names are frequently reorganised. Current names are mothballed, old names are resurrected and labels are re-grouped, so this doesn’t show up-to-date company structure or a complete list of imprints. As the number of majors gets smaller the number of imprints they operate is increasing and they will buy and buy into more indie labels.
Some company details:
| A note about record label mergers and acquisitions The major record labels don’t stay the same for long. Here are some recent developments:
|
The major labels don’t manufacture significant numbers of CDs in-house.
Major record companies aren’t exactly the same—their earnings break down differently depending on their market activities. Here’s the BMG picture spanning the start of their joint venture with Sony Music Group in 2004.
About 320 majors and large indies make up the membership of the BPI (founded 1973).
Independents rarely include publishing or manufacturing. They occasionally run distribution and frequently have new media operations.
The indies make 4 out of 5 controlled releases, and sell about 30% of recorded music worldwide.
There are several thousand independents in the UK alone—they are simply record labels that don’t qualify to be called majors. Some indies specialise in licensing existing recordings but most deal with their own content and artists.
The bigger indies normally use major label distribution, and majors sometimes own shares or invest in indies. This doesn’t necessarily reduce a record label’s independence.
About 850 indies make up the membership of AIM (founded in 1998).
There are examples of independent labels in Independents and DIY.
These are the main relationships between record labels, music industry trade organisations and other professional bodies.
Publishing companies originally printed and sold sheet music—today their business is based on publishing royalties. Publishing and copyright began with printing and now includes digital copies.
The main role of a modern publisher is collecting royalties from national royalty systems across the world on behalf of writers (and themselves). Publishing today normally means the release of a recording rather than sheet music, and music publishers do little traditional paper publishing.
Publishing consists of two main activities:
The first is generally called administration and the second is a full publishing service.
About 200 corporate members representing 3,000 publishers, and 40,000 writers make up the membership of MPA (founded 1881).
Publishers’ earnings are described in Royalties and licenses and Collection societies.
Publishing services are discussed in Songwriting.
Music publishers are not generally called majors and indies although all the major record labels have big music publishing sister companies. EMI and WMG own the largest publishing catalogues.
| Music publishing company | Songs | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | EMI Music Publishing | > 1 million |
| 2 |  | Warner/Chappell Music Inc. | > 1 million |
| 3 |  | BMG Music Publishing | > 1 million |
| 4 |  | Universal Music Publishing | > 1 million |
| 5 |  | Sony/ATV Music Publishing | > 400,000 |
The copyright numbers given for the big publishers are fairly conservative. Sony is the odd one out in this group—it’s a loose collection of catalogues which is no bigger than the largest independent publishers.
| A note about music publishing mergers and acquisitions The big publishers don’t stay the same for long. Here are some recent developments:
|
The other main category of music publishing is library, production and film music. Here’s a list of UK library music publishers from the Regional Film and Video site.
These are the main relationships between music publishers, music industry trade organisations and other professional bodies.
Related pages: DIY and Indie