As a musical artist you may be thinking of how to publish and distribute your recordings. Probably you may be at sea as to whether or not to sign to an actual record label or preferably, you may want to test the waters before finally signing to a record label.

Let us take a look at music publishers and record labels.

Music Publisher

The central role of a music publisher is to deal with copyright and monetization of the songs that they represent. Additionally, the publisher deals with the task of exploiting the song in order to gain income. The publisher would receive income from collection societies for performing rights and mechanical rights and would ensure to pay the royalty payments received to their songwriters and composers. This is because not all songwriters and composers are recording artists and not all recording artists are songwriters.

Record Labels

As juxtaposed to music publishers, record labels have various functions and departments which work together in order to achieve the overall goal.

A record label deals with the release of music through distribution to all music platforms and related distribution paths.

Marketing and promoting releases which is done by music marketers and promoters all form parts of the role of recording artists.

Developing artists and their career with the help of the talent development team is yet another role of a record label.

It is quite evident that a music publisher invests in songwriters and composers and controls musical compositions. A record company invariably invests in artists and controls song master recordings.

written by Ruth Ama Onumah