After finishing my project proposal last week the real research has now started. Looking into Music Publishing companies. This week has been quite slow, feeling slightly distracted after working hard to get my proposal done to the best of my ability and then trying to start my CV so that I can start thinking about jobs post graduation.
I've been trying to get my head round the structure of the Major for labels and how that ties in with Publishing companies. I'm still yet to work out how you qualify to be a 'major' record label, but the four major record labels (EMI, UMG, SME and WMG) control over 70% of the music revenue in the world, so I guess that helps qualify them to be pretty major. Under the umbrella of all four of these companies they all own music publishing companies, so it's obviously big business and worth while if the big four are getting involved in Publishing.
On the most part Artists seem to be with a different company for publishing compared to their record label, to stop a conflict of interest occurring. Obviously if you're signed to a different publishing company then they can use your songs with their Artists to increase your revenue streams as an song writer.
Over the weekend and next week I'll be looking into the roles inside a publishing companies as well as difference in the operations of an independent label compared to a major label to see if there's any difference in the process of Publishing and how they deal with the Artists.
