Traditional Record Company

A Traditional Record Company is considered to be mainly a bricks and mortar business with some clicks (digital) as part of its business structure. Traditional Record Companies usually refer to Music Distributors who are also Record Labels. Record labels themselves are businesses who usually use a third party company to distribute their product whilst developing and packaging the music product themselves. A digital record company is usually a company which is engaged mainly with online sales of music in a digital format. Traditional and Digital music companies license artists and exploit the content of the artist with more control than the artist themselves.

In a Virtual Record Company the artist has all the control and engages the virtual record company as service contractors who serve the client who is the artist. In a virtual record company it is te artist whp dictates how the artists music is marketed with advice from the Virtual record Company Contractors, whereas in a Traditional and/or Digital record company the artist is usually told how the music will be marketed after having assigned full exploitation right over to the traditional or digital company.

The line of definition for these terms such as 'Traditional', 'Digital' and 'Virtual' is however becoming quite blurred as to how best to categorise a record label or record company. In context of our Ye olde music business definitions we see a traditional record company as a recorded music business that has full time employees engaged in most of its business with bricks and mortar stores.

Traditional Record Companies

  • EMI
  • Festival Records (Now Defunct)
  • Shock Entertainment
  • Sony Music Entertainment
  • Universal Music
  • Warner Music

Digital Record Companies

  • Destra Entertainment (Now Defunct)
  • The Orchard

Virtual Record Companies

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