Independent Record Labels

What does independence mean?

Every DIY label is an indie. Independence means running your own record label, preferably with your own publishing.

The point of independence isn’t spurning the music industry—it’s being your own boss and avoiding arbitrary costs and constraints. Big business services can sometimes help you do what you want—it is possible to use them and stay independent. Indie doesn’t have to be a religion—that would defeat the object.

The term “independent” is often used fairly loosely:
sub-labels of the major record companies (not really independent at all); sub-labels of the majors that are specific to a big artist deal (not independent); independent labels with major label shareholders (depends on the relationship); non-major labels that are would-be-majors and behave just like them (you decide); labels for so-called Indie music (whatever that is) maybe independent or not; labels that are independent and different to major labels; the indie genre, the indie philosophy or anything predominantly autonomous.Musical independence has several technical meanings but none of them are definitive. AIM admits record labels with less than 50% major label control. Various independent charts use their own criteria for eligibility.

The advantages of an independent label

If you’re a writer and performer you can also be the publisher and record label, and keep your rights and recordings. You can make direct contact with your audience using the Internet and mail order, supported by live gigs and publicity. This is DIY. Publishing your own work and making your own records is fairly straightforward.

The Internet, home recording and cheap duplication make DIY easy and attractive.

You don’t have to sign a contract—you work for yourself. Nobody will try to turn you into a copy of someone else. You decide the art-work and which tracks go on the CD. You decide the running order, production and arrangement. You decide your own recording and release schedules. You license what you like, where and when you like, to who you like. There’s no label boss to impose copy-protection or DRM. No one else makes decisions about you and your work. You own the web site, publicity, promotion material and your image. You can charge fair prices and avoid reselling old tracks on new compilations. You can give yourself more points than the Stones and still undersell the majors. If you make a profit you get to keep most of it yourself (although it may be smaller).

Big record labels normally deduct expenses from an artist’s royalty, including:packaging, promotion (freebies, discounts, some advertising); different territories (countries), formats (SACD, DVD-A, download), times of year (Christmas); breakages (even if there are none), retail at less than full price, record club sales.Recoupable costs will be deducted too (as specified in the contract) and these can include recording. So 10% always means less than 10%. An artist who has paid back their loan and other costs is described as recouped, but they’re the exception rather than the rule. There’s more about record label costs in The money sponge.
A DIY artist obviously keeps 100% after expenses, and independent record label deals are often 50/50.

How big is the independent sector?
Major label sales fell after 2000 and recovered to record levels in 2004/5 before falling again.40% of UK platinum releases in 2002, and 30% in 2003, were independent. Independent releases outnumber the majors 5 to 1 and although the majors dominate popular media they’re responsible for less than 20% of CD titles. 25% of download sales are thought to be independent although high volume online retailers don’t promote much indie content.There are several thousand record labels in the UK, nearly all of them are independent. Together the independents are bigger than any of the major record companies.Independent retailers carry more indie releases than high street record chains. Many low-volume genres (punk, folk, jazz, blues, etc.) are better represented by indies because the bigger labels specialise in mass media and pop chart releases.Most DIY and some small label releases, and many CDs sold at gigs are not bar-coded or counted in official figures, so the official numbers for releases and sales inevitably under-report indie statistics.