Wednesday 11:26am (8th July 2009)

A Record Label Where Musicians Retain Their Copyright..
Techdirt has a story on Radiohead's manager, Brian Message, who is about to launch an record label called Polyphonic where musicians retain their copyright and earn 50% of profits. Techdirt says, "We've pointed out how incredibly ridiculous the old structure of the recording industry was, where artists would hand over pretty much all of their rights to the label. It's amazing that this sort of indentured servitude model has survived as long as it has. After all, if you look at other parallels -- such as venture capitalists and startups, the VCs don't end up totally owning startups to the same extent as labels. Of course, this was really a function of the limitations inherent in the industry: the very limited ability to promote and distribute music in the past without a major record label behind you. With those barriers falling away, we're seeing much more reasonable models pop up. I still believe there's a big place for record labels, but it no longer needs to be a massive record label where you hand over all your rights.