What’s Appropriate for a Small Label to Ask of Their Artists

Originally Published on September 20th, 2017.
Property of Dozmia.com.

Originally, I planned on calling this article “Things No DIY Label Should Ask of Its Artists.” What I realized in doing research is that, contrary to what I had previously thought and as is common in life, there is two sides to every thing and almost always an exception to rules that I had thought were clearly black and white. So I want to give this article space to start and encourage a discussion about how labels treat their artists and vice versa. Let me give a little bit of background first though.

A friend recently approached me and asked about a deal his band was being offered with an independent record label. The label was not going to press physical copies for them and in exchange for only promotion and digital distribution was going to take the masters of their record. To me, this seemed like a bad deal. If you’re a small label that no one has ever heard of — which this label was — why would you ask a band to give everything they have to you, with little no physical return? I suppose if each party makes a lot of money because this label is somehow magic at promotion, but I still don’t think it’s worth your masters.

This got me thinking and I reached out to some people — label owners primarily — to see what made them cringe when they heard about dealings of fellow labels and artists. Here’s what they came up with.

The rest of this article is available to read here.