Record Label

By Wojciech Koszynski

What is a record label?A record label operates as several different things for music artists. They can complete tasks such as publishing, branding, trademarks, coordination of production, manufacture, distribution, marketing, promotion, and enforcement of copyright laws for the individual singles, albums and music videos. Also, they can do talent scouting in places like pubs, unknown concerts and street performers and the start the process of developing artists to make them known performers or pop stars. The record label will control the artist’s contract details and agents.

What type of record label? Why?I believe that we would sign our artist into a independent record label. This is due to the fact

that we would be given a lot more freedom in regards to contracts and decision making for his music, advertisement, videos and more. Also, we would have more freedom in shaping our artist in the way we would want him portrayed or visualised by the media and audiences.

The label that we would assign our artist to is XL Recordings, this is due to the fact that they are quite popular in the UK as they have artists such as Adele and The Prodigy assigned. However, the most important reason is the fact that they don't specialise in any genre yet they have been successful, but I believe Pop is their strongest genre as Adele has earned them the most money(Adele sent their bank balance from £3 Million to £32 Million) and has kept her image the way she wants it, whilst being highly successful.

Why not a major Label?We didn’t want join a major record label because we would be highly limited with decisions made with our videos, music and artist, and we would have less control over them. Alternatively, a major record label does have its perks. One of the most positive features from a major label is the money because we wouldn’t have a small budget and risks could easily be taken, which means we could be more creative and innovative. Additionally, a major record label can offer contacts with several variations of studios and companies that can assist us in our production. Also, the fact that they already established means that music created by them will attract people easier.

XL RecordingXL Recordings is a British independent record label, formed in 1989 by Richard Russell, Tim Palmer and Nick Halkes and they are owned by the Beggars Group. They don't have a specific genre. They started off in the 1980s as a branch of Beggars Banquet Records, they began with rave and dance music. In the 1990s, the label specialised in anything from dance to drum and bass, also after Palmer retired and Halkes transferred to work with EMI. Russell took over the business, which allowed him to widen his search for artists that were original and inventive. They were really successful with The Prodigy’s second and third albums as they hit charts across the world. The 2000s brought the company onto another scale after successes with artists such as MIA, Dizzee Rascal, Adele and Radiohead, all of these artists winning individual awards for their work. The 2010s followed the 2000s with similar success and more releases.

CopyRightCopyright is legal right formed by the law of the government in certain countries that allows inventors or creators exclusive right to control the distribution and use of their original work. A contract for copyright can last between 50 to 100 years before expiration and that contract could be extended. Also, in some cases the owners can give permission to use the invention if they receive a profit for it or the users don't make money from it. For example, if an artist posts a video on YouTube with their original song and hasn’t got a copyright on it any could take that song or video and reuse it for anything to make money. Copyright is in place to restrict that and takedown any illegally downloaded copies. Therefore, a record label is responsible for making sure they have rights to the songs of their artists to make sure they make the most money out of the artist. I am going to have to take this into consideration because I am using a song I didn’t create, therefore I will have to ask for permission to use their song and make sure I don't make any money from using it. If I disobey copyrights I could get into serious trouble that could also involve a lawsuit. I will upload the video onto YouTube so it is for free view, and make it non monetised, also I will make sure not to use copyrighted images.

JWK Studios logo

JWK Studios OriginsJWK Studios is the name of our British Independent record label that we have created. The name was created after the initials of my whole groups first names, Justin, Wojciech and Kienan. We were founded in 2015 by Justin, Wojciech and Kienan, this record label was founded after the creation of the conglomerate Psychosis Productions. The purpose of JWK is to scout new talent and allow them to grow their persona and develop their careers. We will find these artists in unexpected places such as bars and other areas in which music is produced because we want to give every individual a chance to spark their music career. We believe that there is a hidden gem in every corner of any place, thus is the reason we want to scout in unexpected places. Also, the genre we specialise in is Pop, however we do like to keep a great variety of genres on our tabs because we could find an artist that is impossible to turn down.

Our aim is to allow our artists freedom in creating their persona, so in the future they can express themselves in any way they want as long as it's not controversial. These controversial acts could ruin our label and the artist because we want to build an empire that in the future holds the biggest stars in the music industry. We want to build our artists to a major level with a fan base that is willing to follow the artist. If we were to sign artists that are already developed with a persona we would focus on mainly pop artists as it's something we specialise in, we could potentially sign artists such as Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, Selena Gomez and many more.