The music industry

How the music industry operates

• The traditional method that most artists take involves getting signed by a record label.
• Most people try to get signed by a label as the label essentially acts as an investor that invests in the artist and the project which normally includes mixing and mastering, paying for studio time and getting an advance.
• The label will also handle the documentation for the release which includes royalty splits.
• Royalty splits refers to what percentage of every pound earned is given to the artist and the co-writers and how much is given to the record label in order to cover the costs from the initial investment.

How the artist receives their cut

• In terms of artists receiving their cut the more units an artist sells the greater the amount will be.
• If the song is used in DVDs, placed inside a mechanical toy or if the song ends up in compilation CDs, the artist will be paid.
• The mechanical copyright protection society pays royalty shares on copies of the artists track.

Publishing income

• Publishing income can be gained from a wide number of sources.
• Examples of ways that the song can be published and the artist can earn money is when the song is played on TV or the radio. Also if the song was covered by another artist or if it's used in a film.
• Other examples include when the song is performed live or if its played in the changing rooms of a clothes store etc.
• Essentially whenever the song is aired the artist will be paid.
• This system works due to collection agencies such as PRS in the UK or ASCAP in the US.

a publishing method

• Artists releasing their own material could have their music synced to TV, film or video game projects.
• The benefits of syncing music are, that the artist will be paid for the use of their track and the artist has the potential to increase awareness of the record as it has the potential to reach a wide audience who may not have otherwise had the opportunity to listen to the track.
• This process is considered to be difficult to a certain extent therefore there are companies who will do this on behalf of the artist for a fee/percentage cut.

Distribution

• A distributor is essentially for shipping records from the warehouse to the store
• Nowadays digital distribution is much more popular than physical distribution.
• This does mean that to a certain extent distribution is easier as there are certain organisations which can distribute on behalf of the artist for a small fee.
• However this does mean the artist needs to ensure the song is available in all areas where members of the fan base are expecting it to be.

linking to our music video

• The easiest way for our music video to be distributed and to reach our target audience would be through digital distribution as its relatively low cost due to the fact that we just need to ensure that it is available on sites such as iTunes and Amazon.
• Therefore we could do this on our own or in order to publish it to the best sites and a variety of sites we could enlist the help of a publishing company and by paying a small fee, the company will publish our song to the relevant sites. This would be ideal as they are likely to have the knowledge of what sites will be suitable.
• In addition to this the music video could be distributed through specialist sites that focus on specific genres such as the pop genre as its likely that the main target audience will be regularly visiting these types of sites and will therefore encounter the music video.
• To conclude it's unlikely that we will use a publishing company as we will have to pay a fee therefore we are likely to try to distribute it ourselves.