Mainstream vs. Independent Labels

561 Words3 Pages
Mainstream vs. Independent Labels In the music industry there are independent artists and there are artists signed to a major label. Independent artists are creative and do not receive any outside financial support to put together their project. An artist signed to a major label has a big corporation backing all of their projects. There are differences between the contracts, distribution, and even the quality of the material published. I am going to explain the differences between independent and major and the pros and cons of both. There are a lot of differences between being independent and signed to a major label. Major labels are bigger in size and control their own distribution and publishing companies. Independent Labels work with other smaller companies to distribute and publish their work. On an independent label the majority of the money being made is getting distributed to just a few people. As opposed to a major record label there so many people contributing that money is widely divided. There’s a difference in the videos, tours and sometimes even the actual music. Those are some differences between a major record label and an independent record label. There are a lot of pros and cons to being on an independent record label. One of the advantages is when you sign your contract you get all the rights to your music. By being allowed to keep the rights to the music, artists have the option to do what they would like once the song has been recorded. Independent labels also have what they call pro artist contract. The indie label contracts are usually more artist-friendly, giving more money to their artist through profit-sharing programs or simply a larger royalty percentage. The most common issue for independent labels is lack of funds. A lack of funding means a smaller budget for recording, cd duplication and replication, distribution, tour support and
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