Complete guide to the Music Industry

First of all.. I havent made this.. I saw it on another forum and thought it could be nice to have here too (for those of who havent read it)...

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It will cover:

Labels– What they are, how they work, which are bad/good, how to deal with them.
Contracts – Which are good/bad, most important terms explained.
Publishing - What on earth it is
Formats – Mp3,Vinyl,CD – the differences and quantities.
Distribution – How it works and how much it costs.
Sales/Charts – How many copies tracks sell and how to follow their success
Promotion – The different ways of promotion explained briefly
Problem situations & solutions – Typical issues producer may face and how to deal with them

Getting signed

Some tend to consider this as the ultimate goal of music production. It is not. It is not a competition how fast you can achieve it or how many times. It only matters when you truly think you have made a great track and want to share it with the world.

So many kids think getting a recording deal is something huge and makes all the difference. Often the label is just putting out an mp3 which ends up selling just a few copies. It is generally very over rated thing.

So take your time. Do music because you like doing it, and do the kind of music you like doing. You are only cheating yourself if you produce certain music just to get signed to a big label. Once you think you have made a good track, and honestly think it’s worth a release, you may start seeking a label for it.

Most important, don’t become arrogant. Keep those feet on the ground. Just because you can afford to pay one month’s rent and Daniel Kandi knows you by name, doesn’t mean you are anything special.

Briefly about EDM labels

They are companies and are here to make business. Usually run by 1-5 persons. Most common is “digital only” label. Around 10-100 new labels are formed each month, the same amount goes out of business each month.

A good label will offer a reasonable and fair contract, where the profit is equally divided between them and the artist. They will only sign tracks that are on the current standards and that they believe will sell well. They only sign the amount of artist they can handle. They will master the track by a professional to ensure the sound is up to the standards. They will market and promote the tracks with all the resources they have. They pay the royalties on time. They basically offer a loyal, long term relationship to the artists they sign.

It is just sad how many labels fail at nearly all of those tasks nowadays. This is why you see so many artists signing their stuff randomly all over the place. It is not healthy. Try to establish a loyal relationship with the label you sign your tracks.

Label types

Major (International media groups)

Emi, Sony, Warner, Universal. There are no other "major" labels. Together they control 70% of the market. They only release music by high potential artists. A typical trance artist does not interest them. If one of these have licensed your track on their distributed compilation it doesn't mean you are "signed" to them. It's not the same thing. So if you put them as your label on myspace, you are only lying to yourself.


Large/Medium (established indie trance labels)



Armada, Anjunabeats, Blackhole, Vandit etc. These are established and known names in the scene. Usually run by a big name Artist/DJ. Note that some of them sign a lot of new tracks monthly, so they may have very little resources to spend on individual tracks.

Small/digital only (less known & indie)

I am not going to name any examples here. They can be recently founded or own very limited resources. Not necessarily any worse than a large label! However there is lot of bad apples among these. Some are proper but some have absolutely no idea what they are doing.

Which label to choose

It may feel like a difficult decision as there are hundreds of labels to choose from. You should obviously start from the labels that release the type of music you enjoy. You should not randomly send your track to dozens of labels hoping some will take it! This may eventually get your tracks leaked or otherwise rejected by many labels.

Bigger doesn't mean better. If a label like Armada picks your track it doesn't mean Armin is going to playlist it everywhere and include it on the asot compilation. They may spend a lot less resources to it than some smaller label would! A big name DJ doesn’t mind on which label the track has been released to spin it, as long it sounds good.

If your track has been accepted by more than one label, be patient and carefully choose which deal benefits you more. Many do the mistake and sign the first deal they get immediately without carefully considering it first.

Once you have chosen the label, and they treat you well, stick with them!
If they see you signing tracks to other labels as well, a loyal relationship most often cannot be formed. If the label however does not treat you well, leave them. If only everyone did this, we would soon get rid of the labels which do not respect their artists.

If your track is rejected by many labels, it just may not be good enough, even if there was some small label willing to release it. The standard some labels have these days is just too low. If you don't even like the track yourself, then simply leave it unreleased! You don’t benefit anything from releasing a bad track. If you are here just to collect different labels to your discography you have misunderstood the whole idea.


Why to be cautious with small labels

It's dangerously easy to set up a digital label. Anything from 10 to 100 new digital edm labels are formed each month. It can be founded by any person at any age, with any, if any, experience from the industry. Some of the labels aren't even properly registered. The official registration
is done by filling a few forms and paying a small fee (50-200e).
Getting a digital distribution deal with online stores (itunes, beatport, cjdshop etc) is completely free and just requires filling a few forms.
The label can be up and running in a few days. In practice a digital only label is completely free to run. Typically their overall turnover is just a few hundred Euros a year. As most edm fans are tech-nerds, getting a fancy looking website is not a problem either (so don’t let it fool you).

In the end most small digital labels have no money, knowledge or contacts in the scene. You benefit nothing by making a deal with them. At least make sure how exactly are they going to promote and market your music if you make a deal with them.

Dealing with the A&R

A&R is the guy who decides whether the label is interested in signing your track or not. He often has to listen to several hundred tracks a month, so don’t expect feedback unless he is interested in releasing your track.

If the A&R is interested in your track he will contact you asap. He is there
to negotiate a deal with you and answer all the questions you may have. If the A&R doesn’t answer your questions properly or is otherwise acting carelessly, it is a sign you shouldn’t be dealing with the label! There are a lot of unprofessional A&R guys on the market.

Contracts

A contract is always a contract. If you sign it, you must obey it. Contracts are often complex, so If you don't understand them, don't sign them! You can always ask the label if there's something unclear. If they are unwilling to explain it clearly then don’t do business with them. Avoid signing "one page" contracts. If something important is left unmentioned, it can later be made up by the label.

If you sign a bad contract, it's essentially your own fault!

As a newcomer, with mediocre track, you don't have much to say about the contract the label offers. You either accept it or not. If you happen to have real hit material the label is probably willing to negotiate about the terms with you.

The use of lawyer

When dealing with major labels having a lawyer is essential. The contracts are complex and big money is involved. But when dealing with typical trance labels, like armada or blackhole, a lawyer is not usually required or even worth it.

Most important terms in the master agreement explained briefly:

Rights: Exclusive/Inclusive. Under exclusive term the label owns exclusive rights to sell the track and decide what to do with it. Under inclusive rights the artist has more control over the track and can offer it to other labels. So obviously labels prefer to have tracks exclusively. Life-time exclusive right is hardly ever a good thing, but then again if the track is not a hit material, it's unlikely other labels would be interested to have it later.

Royalty rate: A percentage that indicates how much you get from the money your track generates. There's usually a different percentage for digital, physical and 3rd party releases. You want to have these around 50%. With digital singles anything less than 50% is unfair to you. With physical in-house releases the label has much more expenses to cover so they have a reason to keep this percentage low, something around
16-20 is acceptable. 3rd party releases, such as compilations, are an important part of the income. No reason for the label to get more than 50%!

Deductions: Whether the label is allowed to deduct the distribution and/or manufacturing fees from your paycheck is highly questionable. It’s not really your job to pay their bills! You are obviously earning nothing if there are several people taking their share until something ends up in your direction. And it really is you as an artist that should be getting most of the profit, without you there wouldn’t be any profit. Rather sign a contract where the label is not allowed to deduct manufacturing and distribution fees. At least make sure the label is not deducting something like CDjshop CDs. I have caught one from doing so. They are free for the label!

Advance: Is an advance of the sales. It may be described as a symbolic gesture where the label shows trust in your music by paying some of the profit beforehand. Any decent label will pay you an advance; any serious artist will ask for an advance. If advance is not paid it generally shows the label doesn't have much trust in your music or it is financially unstable. Typical advance for a single is anything from 100€ to 3000€.

Statements: Should be paid twice a year during certain period of time. Make sure they do that. Statement being paid 5 months late is not acceptable. Also be careful that they indeed pay you the full amount, it is easy for the label to be a bit dishonest if the artist doesn’t know how they are calculated.

Which label to choose

It may feel like a difficult decision as there are hundreds of labels to choose from. You should obviously start from the labels that release the type of music you enjoy. You should not randomly send your track to dozens of labels hoping some will take it! This may eventually get your tracks leaked or otherwise rejected by many labels.

Bigger doesn't mean better. If a label like Armada picks your track it doesn't mean Armin is going to playlist it everywhere and include it on the asot compilation. They may spend a lot less resources to it than some smaller label would! A big name DJ doesn’t mind on which label the track has been released to spin it, as long it sounds good.

If your track has been accepted by more than one label, be patient and carefully choose which deal benefits you more. Many do the mistake and sign the first deal they get immediately without carefully considering it first.

Once you have chosen the label, and they treat you well, stick with them!
If they see you signing tracks to other labels as well, a loyal relationship most often cannot be formed. If the label however does not treat you well, leave them. If only everyone did this, we would soon get rid of the labels which do not respect their artists.

If your track is rejected by many labels, it just may not be good enough, even if there was some small label willing to release it. The standard some labels have these days is just too low. If you don't even like the track yourself, then simply leave it unreleased! You don’t benefit anything from releasing a bad track. If you are here just to collect different labels to your discography you have misunderstood the whole idea.


Why to be cautious with small labels

It's dangerously easy to set up a digital label. Anything from 10 to 100 new digital edm labels are formed each month. It can be founded by any person at any age, with any, if any, experience from the industry. Some of the labels aren't even properly registered. The official registration
is done by filling a few forms and paying a small fee (50-200e).
Getting a digital distribution deal with online stores (itunes, beatport, cjdshop etc) is completely free and just requires filling a few forms.
The label can be up and running in a few days. In practice a digital only label is completely free to run. Typically their overall turnover is just a few hundred Euros a year. As most edm fans are tech-nerds, getting a fancy looking website is not a problem either (so don’t let it fool you).

In the end most small digital labels have no money, knowledge or contacts in the scene. You benefit nothing by making a deal with them. At least make sure how exactly are they going to promote and market your music if you make a deal with them.

Dealing with the A&R

A&R is the guy who decides whether the label is interested in signing your track or not. He often has to listen to several hundred tracks a month, so don’t expect feedback unless he is interested in releasing your track.

If the A&R is interested in your track he will contact you asap. He is there
to negotiate a deal with you and answer all the questions you may have. If the A&R doesn’t answer your questions properly or is otherwise acting carelessly, it is a sign you shouldn’t be dealing with the label! There are a lot of unprofessional A&R guys on the market.

Contracts

A contract is always a contract. If you sign it, you must obey it. Contracts are often complex, so If you don't understand them, don't sign them! You can always ask the label if there's something unclear. If they are unwilling to explain it clearly then don’t do business with them. Avoid signing "one page" contracts. If something important is left unmentioned, it can later be made up by the label.

If you sign a bad contract, it's essentially your own fault!

As a newcomer, with mediocre track, you don't have much to say about the contract the label offers. You either accept it or not. If you happen to have real hit material the label is probably willing to negotiate about the terms with you.

The use of lawyer

When dealing with major labels having a lawyer is essential. The contracts are complex and big money is involved. But when dealing with typical trance labels, like armada or blackhole, a lawyer is not usually required or even worth it.

Most important terms in the master agreement explained briefly:

Rights: Exclusive/Inclusive. Under exclusive term the label owns exclusive rights to sell the track and decide what to do with it. Under inclusive rights the artist has more control over the track and can offer it to other labels. So obviously labels prefer to have tracks exclusively. Life-time exclusive right is hardly ever a good thing, but then again if the track is not a hit material, it's unlikely other labels would be interested to have it later.

Royalty rate: A percentage that indicates how much you get from the money your track generates. There's usually a different percentage for digital, physical and 3rd party releases. You want to have these around 50%. With digital singles anything less than 50% is unfair to you. With physical in-house releases the label has much more expenses to cover so they have a reason to keep this percentage low, something around
16-20 is acceptable. 3rd party releases, such as compilations, are an important part of the income. No reason for the label to get more than 50%!

Deductions: Whether the label is allowed to deduct the distribution and/or manufacturing fees from your paycheck is highly questionable. It’s not really your job to pay their bills! You are obviously earning nothing if there are several people taking their share until something ends up in your direction. And it really is you as an artist that should be getting most of the profit, without you there wouldn’t be any profit. Rather sign a contract where the label is not allowed to deduct manufacturing and distribution fees. At least make sure the label is not deducting something like CDjshop CDs. I have caught one from doing so. They are free for the label!

Advance: Is an advance of the sales. It may be described as a symbolic gesture where the label shows trust in your music by paying some of the profit beforehand. Any decent label will pay you an advance; any serious artist will ask for an advance. If advance is not paid it generally shows the label doesn't have much trust in your music or it is financially unstable. Typical advance for a single is anything from 100€ to 3000€.

Statements: Should be paid twice a year during certain period of time. Make sure they do that. Statement being paid 5 months late is not acceptable. Also be careful that they indeed pay you the full amount, it is easy for the label to be a bit dishonest if the artist doesn’t know how they are calculated.

Publishing

Many new artist tend to bypass this completely, often because they have absolutely no clue what it is. Labels often slip publishing contract among other agreements, so some sign it by accident. Publishing in general is a tricky and complex thing to explain and understand. However I will give it a shot here

Publishing has everything to do with royalties. They are different royalties than what you have agreed in the master agreement. There are two important types of publishing royalties; mechanical royalty and performance royalty. These are what you gain when your track is being reproduced or performed in public. So basically these are everything you can imagine; tv, internet radio, films, Cds, ring tones etc. Several country based collection societies will keep track of them and collect the royalties for you. Codes like ISRC is used to keep trace of your track.

When you produce a track from scratch you are called a song writer. As a song writer you automatically gain copyrights and therefore publishing rights to your track. You can either keep or sell these. If you keep the publishing rights, you are the publisher yourself. It means you have to collect the royalties from the society by yourself. However it may be rather difficult and complex task to do, so that is why there’s a publisher to help you out.

Publisher will take care of collecting the royalties for you and also look after the track, by ensuring it is not being used without permission. It can also promote it and make it appear on TV ads or films. There are different size publishers with different deals. You can sign a single-track publishing deal for example. It means the publisher only receives copyrights to that specific track. Publisher will take 50% of the profit. If your track appears on a film and receives 20 000€ worth of royalties, you will get 10 000€.

A general rule would be to keep the label and publisher away from each other. However a lot of labels will not sign a deal with you unless you take their publisher. Unless you have real hit material here, that you believe will receive a lot of major radio play and possibly appear on tv, it might not make too much difference.


Label takes 90% you get 10%.

I can’t emphasis the importance of this enough. The recent changes in the technology have dramatically affected labels position and importance in the process. In theory you don’t need labels anymore to release your music or get it heard. Some years ago the situation was very different but not anymore. So there are some labels out there that are not willing to spend anything on your track and make you do all the work, but yet for some reason they think they are entitled to a big part of the profit.

If your track is released in a digital format only and you end up doing tasks like mastering and promotion too, there’s no reason why the label should get 50% of the sales. But there’s actually labels that take 86% of the profit. So if the track makes 1000 Euros the label would get 860€. And even if it wasn’t about the money, it should be about the principle. So for the love of god, have some self respect and don’t sign such deals!!


How long it takes to release your track

In theory a label can have your track available on all online stores in just a few days after the agreement. But often it takes a lot longer, from a month to a year. There can be many reasons for this. Label may need to handle the contracts, master the track, find remixers, press it on vinyl or just to be the only one to have the track . And when there are several tracks needing these same tasks, your track is bound to end up in a long queue.
So it is good to have a lot of patience. Sometimes however the label simply forgets to release your track, yes, this is exactly how much some labels care about the music they sign.

Release formats

You can always ask the label on which format they plan to release your track. Common answer is that they release it digital only first and if the track is selling well they may consider a vinyl release. Note that CDr-single (CDjshop) is basically the same thing as a mp3 release!

Mp3

The best yet the worst invention ever. It is the standard release format nowadays. Most copies of your track are most likely sold in this format. It doesn't cost anything for the label to manufacture or distribute.
Virtually all labels will release your track at least in this format.

12" Vinyl

The only real format to release edm music. Unfortunately very rare these days. Rather expensive and financially risky thing for the label. However it is a sign that the label believes in your track. (Pressed in quantities of >500. 1000 copies will cost around 800-2000 € depending on the artwork)

White label (promo)

The same as above but a promo copy, prior to the proper release.
Usually it is blank (all white) and limited to a very few copies. Pressed by labels for testing and feedback purposes. (Pressed in small quantities <100-300)

CD-R

Cheap version of the glass CD. Mainly used for promotional purposes.
CDjshop presses them for free. Destined to DJs. (pressed in small quantities <100. 0-50 €)


CD-Maxi single (Glass)

Retail CD. Rare, not sold anymore in some countries. Destined to listeners. (Pressed in large quantities >1000. 1000 copies will cost around 800€)

Distribution

Done either digitally or physically. Digital is mp3 (and wav) and physical is vinyl and CD (album/compilation). There are major differences between these two. Digital distribution is free, fast and easy. This is why almost all trance labels have moved to use mp3 and only occasionally releasing material on vinyl or CD.

None of the online shops (Beatport,Itunes,Audiojelly,CDjshop etc) charge anything from their service, other than take a certain percentage from the actual sales (around 30%). So releasing mp3 or CD-r is basically risk free business for the labels. If the record flops, there are no costs. This is exactly the reason labels can sign a lot of low quality tracks nowadays.

Most labels use 3rd parties to distribute their music to retail shops,
especially when doing physical releases. The distributor takes 20-40% of the sales. Most labels want to handle the digital distribution by themselves to gain maximum profit.

Publishing

Many new artist tend to bypass this completely, often because they have absolutely no clue what it is. Labels often slip publishing contract among other agreements, so some sign it by accident. Publishing in general is a tricky and complex thing to explain and understand. However I will give it a shot here

Publishing has everything to do with royalties. They are different royalties than what you have agreed in the master agreement. There are two important types of publishing royalties; mechanical royalty and performance royalty. These are what you gain when your track is being reproduced or performed in public. So basically these are everything you can imagine; tv, internet radio, films, Cds, ring tones etc. Several country based collection societies will keep track of them and collect the royalties for you. Codes like ISRC is used to keep trace of your track.

When you produce a track from scratch you are called a song writer. As a song writer you automatically gain copyrights and therefore publishing rights to your track. You can either keep or sell these. If you keep the publishing rights, you are the publisher yourself. It means you have to collect the royalties from the society by yourself. However it may be rather difficult and complex task to do, so that is why there’s a publisher to help you out.

Publisher will take care of collecting the royalties for you and also look after the track, by ensuring it is not being used without permission. It can also promote it and make it appear on TV ads or films. There are different size publishers with different deals. You can sign a single-track publishing deal for example. It means the publisher only receives copyrights to that specific track. Publisher will take 50% of the profit. If your track appears on a film and receives 20 000€ worth of royalties, you will get 10 000€.

A general rule would be to keep the label and publisher away from each other. However a lot of labels will not sign a deal with you unless you take their publisher. Unless you have real hit material here, that you believe will receive a lot of major radio play and possibly appear on tv, it might not make too much difference.


Label takes 90% you get 10%.

I can’t emphasis the importance of this enough. The recent changes in the technology have dramatically affected labels position and importance in the process. In theory you don’t need labels anymore to release your music or get it heard. Some years ago the situation was very different but not anymore. So there are some labels out there that are not willing to spend anything on your track and make you do all the work, but yet for some reason they think they are entitled to a big part of the profit.

If your track is released in a digital format only and you end up doing tasks like mastering and promotion too, there’s no reason why the label should get 50% of the sales. But there’s actually labels that take 86% of the profit. So if the track makes 1000 Euros the label would get 860€. And even if it wasn’t about the money, it should be about the principle. So for the love of god, have some self respect and don’t sign such deals!!


How long it takes to release your track

In theory a label can have your track available on all online stores in just a few days after the agreement. But often it takes a lot longer, from a month to a year. There can be many reasons for this. Label may need to handle the contracts, master the track, find remixers, press it on vinyl or just to be the only one to have the track . And when there are several tracks needing these same tasks, your track is bound to end up in a long queue.
So it is good to have a lot of patience. Sometimes however the label simply forgets to release your track, yes, this is exactly how much some labels care about the music they sign.

Release formats

You can always ask the label on which format they plan to release your track. Common answer is that they release it digital only first and if the track is selling well they may consider a vinyl release. Note that CDr-single (CDjshop) is basically the same thing as a mp3 release!

Mp3

The best yet the worst invention ever. It is the standard release format nowadays. Most copies of your track are most likely sold in this format. It doesn't cost anything for the label to manufacture or distribute.
Virtually all labels will release your track at least in this format.

12" Vinyl

The only real format to release edm music. Unfortunately very rare these days. Rather expensive and financially risky thing for the label. However it is a sign that the label believes in your track. (Pressed in quantities of >500. 1000 copies will cost around 800-2000 € depending on the artwork)

White label (promo)

The same as above but a promo copy, prior to the proper release.
Usually it is blank (all white) and limited to a very few copies. Pressed by labels for testing and feedback purposes. (Pressed in small quantities <100-300)

CD-R

Cheap version of the glass CD. Mainly used for promotional purposes.
CDjshop presses them for free. Destined to DJs. (pressed in small quantities <100. 0-50 €)


CD-Maxi single (Glass)

Retail CD. Rare, not sold anymore in some countries. Destined to listeners. (Pressed in large quantities >1000. 1000 copies will cost around 800€)

Distribution

Done either digitally or physically. Digital is mp3 (and wav) and physical is vinyl and CD (album/compilation). There are major differences between these two. Digital distribution is free, fast and easy. This is why almost all trance labels have moved to use mp3 and only occasionally releasing material on vinyl or CD.

None of the online shops (Beatport,Itunes,Audiojelly,CDjshop etc) charge anything from their service, other than take a certain percentage from the actual sales (around 30%). So releasing mp3 or CD-r is basically risk free business for the labels. If the record flops, there are no costs. This is exactly the reason labels can sign a lot of low quality tracks nowadays.

Most labels use 3rd parties to distribute their music to retail shops,
especially when doing physical releases. The distributor takes 20-40% of the sales. Most labels want to handle the digital distribution by themselves to gain maximum profit.

Sales/Charts

Imagine that around 500 new trance tracks are released each month. When combined with the other edm genres the total amount of new tracks can be over 5000! And these are all sold in the same shops. 80% of this stuff is useless, something that shouldn’t been released in the first place.

These days trance tracks do sell extremely poor. Average release sells just around hundred copies globally. Even good releases hardly go selling over few thousand copies. So just think about how well the bad releases sell!

Beatport is probably the best place to see how your track is doing globally. However Beatport does not have all releases, it also stopped accepting new labels some time ago. On their front page you can see the global top 100 chart. This chart combines the sales from all genres. The top 10 tracks are selling several thousand copies (up to 40 000 copies). For a trance track to get on the global top 100 is already quite an achievement. There's however own chart for trance tracks only. To get on the top 100 trance list, your track only has to sell a dozen copies in a week or so.

Other smaller stores, such as Audiojelly or Cdjshop, are quite useless. They sell ridiculously low amount of tracks. Top 10 spot is possible to achieve in very few sales. So don't make a fool out of yourself by go yelling "omg, I am number 99 on Audiojelly!". Because it's possible your track only sold one copy in a week.

Illegal downloads

It has dramatically changed the nature of music business, and it seems to be getting worse. Each decent release will be available to download illegally at some point. If your track is popular, illegal downloads can eat big part of the possible sales. There's really nothing anyone can do about it other than to accept it. But then again, how many producers have illegally downloaded their software?

Promotion briefly

This makes the difference whether your track sells a little or nothing.
However this should be the label's headache, not yours.

Examples:

Playlisted on ASOT: A sad truth is that ASOT is the only meaningful "trance" radio show out there. It can increase the sales dramatically if the track is featured on the show several times. However the “fact” that ASOT would have more than 6 million listeners weekly is absolute bullshit (this figure is probably made up by somebody like frostdude). It only has around 3000 listeners when it premieres on DI.FM and this is a station that owns exclusive rights to broadcast it first. So the odds of it getting 100 times more listeners on each other radio station are rather ridiculous. The real number of overall listeners weekly is more like 100 000.
Playlisted on other radio shows: Unless we are talking about BBC radio one, the most trance radio shows do not gain much listeners. There's literally thousands no-name DJs having their own radio show, being playlisted by them makes no difference.
Random forum spamming: Makes no difference.
Featured on compilations: CD compilations generate interest. Having your name on various compilations will make you known and heard.
Vinyl release: Vinyl release stands up in the middle of thousand mp3s.



Problem situations & how to solve them

When there's a problem you should always contact the label and let them know about it. And essentially try to solve it privately. Sometimes the problem cannot be solved between the label. In this situation getting a lawyer might be the only solution, however it's not very ideal to hire one for the sake of few hundred Euros. So the best way to avoid getting into a problem situation is to avoid dealing with labels that seem untrustworthy. Common sense helps a lot!

Example situations:

Unpaid royalties

A typical issue is that the label is not paying the royalties on time. This is a common problem especially with smaller labels. You should refer to your contract when the payments are due. If the parsons running the label are not paying them on time or even ignoring your emails, there’s a problem indeed. You should lose your cool once they are late for over a year.
You can try to pressure the label by saying you will hire a lawyer or taking it to public. If this doesn't help, then you just have to accept the fact that you are not getting paid and not to deal with that label anymore.

Track released without permission

A situation where the label has released your track without your agreement. An email where you agree to have the track released is already an agreement. However all professional labels will ask you to sign a proper contract. If you haven’t agreed to let the label release the track at any point this is a serious breach which should never happen. If you have already signed the track with another label you should contact them immediately and let them handle the situation. If you haven’t, the situation is trickier. A possible solution is to demand the parsons to remove the track immediately and request financial compensation. The compensation should be larger than the expected sales. Personally I would consult a lawyer; I just find such situation very unacceptable.

A bad contract

If you have signed a “bad” contract, meaning the terms are unfair, you are the only one to blame. The label can offer you anything, but nobody forces you to sign it! Only solution is to learn what a bad contract is and not to sign them.

Unreleased track

This is something that happens rarely. A situation where the label is refusing to release the track for a reason or another and is unwilling to reverse the contract. Unless the contract is stating anything about your ability to reverse it or the label having to release the track under certain period of time, they can do that. In this situation there's once again very little you can do. In an extreme situation you can go ahead and release the track without the labels permission. It can get you sued, but you do what you gotta do. I would suggest this in a situation where the label has mystically disappeared and not to be reached anymore.

Leaked track

This is something that may happen during demo submission for example. Some labels do handle demos very carelessly (even freely accessible ftp server). Only solution is to choose carefully who you send your demo.

Stolen track

Unfortunately there's people that can shamelessly take the credits of someone else’s work. The extreme situation is
where a person simply stamps his/her on the track and calls it his/her own work. The old trick of sending an email to yourself and not opening it does not work, it doesn't held up in court for example. Again be careful
who you send your track and if somebody does it after it has been signed, inform the label and let them handle the situation. But generally it is very difficult to prove who originally made the track.

Plagiarism

If you notice that someone has heavily, and rather obviously, ripped off your complex melodies, the only solution is to humiliate this producer in public by posting samples on forum or youtube. If just one or two notes are ripped, you shouldn’t get distressed, since it happens rather often and it’s mostly unintentional.

Lawsuit

If you have decided to screw with a large label by breaching the contract, you may end up facing a lawsuit. You may need to travel to the country the label is based end up paying heavy cash. A solution is not to breach the contracts you have signed. And if you do, at least make up a great excuse story.

"Going to public"

A situation where you have been screwed by a label or another producer and you decide to present your case in public. Some call this a childish thing to do, which it is, IF you have caused it yourself by doing something wrong. However when the other party has either stopped all communication or is otherwise refusing to solve the situation within reasonable measures you have every right to warn others!

Small producers do have very little protection if a label decides to screw them over. If the screwed person does nothing to it, another person is bound to get screwed later and this will go on as long as nobody does anything about it.

If a big artist gets screwed, s/he is most likely going to bring it up
on interviews at some point, possibly getting major attention to it (E.g.
Paul van dyk vs MFS, James Holden vs Silver Planet just to mention a few).

So if you get screwed and there’s nothing else you can do to solve it privately, you can bring it to the public to warn others. If your story is true there will be other people to back it up. But be sure to handle it rationally and that you at least know the basics of English language. Note that emails and contracts are always confidential and private material. You are not allowed to scan and post them in public!

Sales/Charts

Imagine that around 500 new trance tracks are released each month. When combined with the other edm genres the total amount of new tracks can be over 5000! And these are all sold in the same shops. 80% of this stuff is useless, something that shouldn’t been released in the first place.

These days trance tracks do sell extremely poor. Average release sells just around hundred copies globally. Even good releases hardly go selling over few thousand copies. So just think about how well the bad releases sell!

Beatport is probably the best place to see how your track is doing globally. However Beatport does not have all releases, it also stopped accepting new labels some time ago. On their front page you can see the global top 100 chart. This chart combines the sales from all genres. The top 10 tracks are selling several thousand copies (up to 40 000 copies). For a trance track to get on the global top 100 is already quite an achievement. There's however own chart for trance tracks only. To get on the top 100 trance list, your track only has to sell a dozen copies in a week or so.

Other smaller stores, such as Audiojelly or Cdjshop, are quite useless. They sell ridiculously low amount of tracks. Top 10 spot is possible to achieve in very few sales. So don't make a fool out of yourself by go yelling "omg, I am number 99 on Audiojelly!". Because it's possible your track only sold one copy in a week.

Illegal downloads

It has dramatically changed the nature of music business, and it seems to be getting worse. Each decent release will be available to download illegally at some point. If your track is popular, illegal downloads can eat big part of the possible sales. There's really nothing anyone can do about it other than to accept it. But then again, how many producers have illegally downloaded their software?

Promotion briefly

This makes the difference whether your track sells a little or nothing.
However this should be the label's headache, not yours.

Examples:

Playlisted on ASOT: A sad truth is that ASOT is the only meaningful "trance" radio show out there. It can increase the sales dramatically if the track is featured on the show several times. However the “fact” that ASOT would have more than 6 million listeners weekly is absolute bullshit (this figure is probably made up by somebody like frostdude). It only has around 3000 listeners when it premieres on DI.FM and this is a station that owns exclusive rights to broadcast it first. So the odds of it getting 100 times more listeners on each other radio station are rather ridiculous. The real number of overall listeners weekly is more like 100 000.
Playlisted on other radio shows: Unless we are talking about BBC radio one, the most trance radio shows do not gain much listeners. There's literally thousands no-name DJs having their own radio show, being playlisted by them makes no difference.
Random forum spamming: Makes no difference.
Featured on compilations: CD compilations generate interest. Having your name on various compilations will make you known and heard.
Vinyl release: Vinyl release stands up in the middle of thousand mp3s.



Problem situations & how to solve them

When there's a problem you should always contact the label and let them know about it. And essentially try to solve it privately. Sometimes the problem cannot be solved between the label. In this situation getting a lawyer might be the only solution, however it's not very ideal to hire one for the sake of few hundred Euros. So the best way to avoid getting into a problem situation is to avoid dealing with labels that seem untrustworthy. Common sense helps a lot!

Example situations:

Unpaid royalties

A typical issue is that the label is not paying the royalties on time. This is a common problem especially with smaller labels. You should refer to your contract when the payments are due. If the parsons running the label are not paying them on time or even ignoring your emails, there’s a problem indeed. You should lose your cool once they are late for over a year.
You can try to pressure the label by saying you will hire a lawyer or taking it to public. If this doesn't help, then you just have to accept the fact that you are not getting paid and not to deal with that label anymore.

Track released without permission

A situation where the label has released your track without your agreement. An email where you agree to have the track released is already an agreement. However all professional labels will ask you to sign a proper contract. If you haven’t agreed to let the label release the track at any point this is a serious breach which should never happen. If you have already signed the track with another label you should contact them immediately and let them handle the situation. If you haven’t, the situation is trickier. A possible solution is to demand the parsons to remove the track immediately and request financial compensation. The compensation should be larger than the expected sales. Personally I would consult a lawyer; I just find such situation very unacceptable.

A bad contract

If you have signed a “bad” contract, meaning the terms are unfair, you are the only one to blame. The label can offer you anything, but nobody forces you to sign it! Only solution is to learn what a bad contract is and not to sign them.

Unreleased track

This is something that happens rarely. A situation where the label is refusing to release the track for a reason or another and is unwilling to reverse the contract. Unless the contract is stating anything about your ability to reverse it or the label having to release the track under certain period of time, they can do that. In this situation there's once again very little you can do. In an extreme situation you can go ahead and release the track without the labels permission. It can get you sued, but you do what you gotta do. I would suggest this in a situation where the label has mystically disappeared and not to be reached anymore.

Leaked track

This is something that may happen during demo submission for example. Some labels do handle demos very carelessly (even freely accessible ftp server). Only solution is to choose carefully who you send your demo.

Stolen track

Unfortunately there's people that can shamelessly take the credits of someone else’s work. The extreme situation is
where a person simply stamps his/her on the track and calls it his/her own work. The old trick of sending an email to yourself and not opening it does not work, it doesn't held up in court for example. Again be careful
who you send your track and if somebody does it after it has been signed, inform the label and let them handle the situation. But generally it is very difficult to prove who originally made the track.

Plagiarism

If you notice that someone has heavily, and rather obviously, ripped off your complex melodies, the only solution is to humiliate this producer in public by posting samples on forum or youtube. If just one or two notes are ripped, you shouldn’t get distressed, since it happens rather often and it’s mostly unintentional.

Lawsuit

If you have decided to screw with a large label by breaching the contract, you may end up facing a lawsuit. You may need to travel to the country the label is based end up paying heavy cash. A solution is not to breach the contracts you have signed. And if you do, at least make up a great excuse story.

"Going to public"

A situation where you have been screwed by a label or another producer and you decide to present your case in public. Some call this a childish thing to do, which it is, IF you have caused it yourself by doing something wrong. However when the other party has either stopped all communication or is otherwise refusing to solve the situation within reasonable measures you have every right to warn others!

Small producers do have very little protection if a label decides to screw them over. If the screwed person does nothing to it, another person is bound to get screwed later and this will go on as long as nobody does anything about it.

If a big artist gets screwed, s/he is most likely going to bring it up
on interviews at some point, possibly getting major attention to it (E.g.
Paul van dyk vs MFS, James Holden vs Silver Planet just to mention a few).

So if you get screwed and there’s nothing else you can do to solve it privately, you can bring it to the public to warn others. If your story is true there will be other people to back it up. But be sure to handle it rationally and that you at least know the basics of English language. Note that emails and contracts are always confidential and private material. You are not allowed to scan and post them in public!

Who to trust

Essentially don’t trust anyone. You don’t have to get too paranoid, but knowing that the music business isn’t doing well and there’s a still lot of people trying to make a living out of it and feed their family, you should at least be suspicious. Being dishonest to an artist they have never met is not going to get on their conscience. Usually the phrase “this is a great deal, you must sign it!” is… not true.

If you don’t like it then quit!

There’s no reason to keep releasing tracks and suffer if you don’t enjoy it. Many producers have produced few great tracks and then disappeared completely. I don’t blame them. Many labels just don’t treat artist with the respect they deserve. Or perhaps it just wasn’t what they hoped. In this situation it’s just best to forget music industry and occasionally do music for own enjoyment. Or perhaps find a new hobby, like road cycling!

Congratulations! You now understand the basics of the music industry. Now go pwn those labels that were planning to pwn you!

Who to trust

Essentially don’t trust anyone. You don’t have to get too paranoid, but knowing that the music business isn’t doing well and there’s a still lot of people trying to make a living out of it and feed their family, you should at least be suspicious. Being dishonest to an artist they have never met is not going to get on their conscience. Usually the phrase “this is a great deal, you must sign it!” is… not true.

If you don’t like it then quit!

There’s no reason to keep releasing tracks and suffer if you don’t enjoy it. Many producers have produced few great tracks and then disappeared completely. I don’t blame them. Many labels just don’t treat artist with the respect they deserve. Or perhaps it just wasn’t what they hoped. In this situation it’s just best to forget music industry and occasionally do music for own enjoyment. Or perhaps find a new hobby, like road cycling!

Congratulations! You now understand the basics of the music industry. Now go pwn those labels that were planning to pwn you!