As a musicians ourselves, who are re-releasing music on our own, I can say I would like to see this type of ‘service’ rather than label. If marketing services were provided by these affinity labels in a non-exclusive venture we would be willing to give up to 10-40% of our sales to them for marketing. The percentage would need to be based on whether they are handling the manufacturing or distribution as well.

The offers we have seen from some of the smaller labels for non-exlusive agreements have ranged from $4 per unit to 50-60% as the band’s cut – after expenses. The labels have also offered to handle manufacturing for about 30% more than we pay to do it ourselves.

One thing that is not offered has been digital distribution marketing. About all you can rely on for digital marketing is the actual store themselves by showing customers comparable music. Their service is lacking as it is not using digital fingerprinting like Last.FM or Pandora.com uses – which gives people a much clearer comparison of music styles.

Marketing is the labels strongest asset, they can do it better than most musicians and they have the best system to get radio play. They should focus on their strengths, or they will not survive.

It is good to hear that someone in the music business is trying things outside the box. They need to change the way they are involved with music, if they want to continue existing. And until they figure it all out, we are stuck dealing with these dinosaur companies that don’t have the faintest clue what their customers want. They only focus on what they want. http://www.custompcmax.com

Affinity labels might help address the fact that the average listener, probably needs to be told what’s worth listening to. The fact is, many casual music listeners don’t care enough to worry about developing their individual tastes in music. This can clearly be seen in the fact that top 40 music formats are now pretty diverse stylistically and are still popular enough to draw a large number of listeners. Somebody is selecting which bands make it into the top 40 pool. Once in, through excessive exposure, the songs/bands become popular. For many listeners, RECOGNITION = APPRECIATION. People will often stop the autoscan on the radio whenever they hear a song they know (unless they really hate it). Record labels are really only needed to serve as promoters and payola check writers (not that that happens) in order to create the next big thing. People who really want to explore different bands and styles can do so on their own.

I am new to the music business just 4 years. I run a small independent heavy metal/rock label and I don’t agree with the assessment regarding record labels. Certainly not by the experience I have had. It has been my experience that bands still want and are looking for good labels to support them and work for/with them. I believe that digital markets are important but they are not necessarily the be all and end all. I have embraced the digital age because it is important and it is growing. Its just right now no-one person or organization has that happy medium that one fits all’ business model. I think in reality that’s probably the music industry’s holy grail, for want of a better expression.
The real problem is basically illegal downloading killed the cash cow that a lot of the music industry were milking preferring to gorge themselves on making as much money in the now with little or no forethought to the future. The way I see it is the Labels really need to stop thinking about how much money they are loosing in terms of profits and get on with the business of re-structuring in terms of investing in artists for the future instead of short term monetary gains. Dumping artists just because they have not hit a target expectation of sales is one example especially if the artists are selling reasonably well. I mean these days who wouldn’t be happy with artists who have 50-60,000 units of first week sales, whereas several years ago that could have got an artists dumped.
Just because you are on the Internet have a DIY distribution are on My Space or Facebook does NOT transpose to good sales or great publicity You still have to get people to these sites. You are just another voice in the millions that are out there. All shouting out for the same thing. How do you combat someone going straight to a P2P and downloading for nothing rather than go and spend money on buying the product? It seems that no-one seems to agree and the RIAA while trying to do the right thing on behalf of its members is actually doing more harm than good. IP’s won’t be coerced into policing because that makes them take the burden of responsibility for other people’s behaviour even by legislation. All that will result in is creating more costs passed on to other people. The big problem we are all suffering for is because no-one had the common sense to see past the greed of raking in as much money as they could while everything was going great and deal with the real problem of the knee jerk reaction of illegal downloading,by people who all too commonly believe that they are being ripped off by greedy record execs. And until the music industry takes responsibility for lack of dealing with those perceptions whether real or not, it is never going to win back the hearts and minds of its customer base.
Labels need to develop partnerships with artists and not contracts that nail them down to the Nth degree. I think better education tools and services provided by the Labels for artists and its customers might help. We’ve lost this generations battle for its dollars We could win the next by getting proactive now otherwise record labels as we know them may end up being forced to playing second fiddle to the hardware industry which is has taken the lead in how and where music is listened to.