New Record Deals...

What has the music industry come to? From the 80’s to 2010 music has went through changes. There are new artist, labels and genre; Pop has collaborated with Hip-Hop and Rock with R&B. But is that enough to keep people happy, to keep them wanting more?

Labels have started and end, artist have come and are now gone. But it wasn’t until the early 2000’s that the music industry began to turn for the bad with the illegal downloading of music; record sales started to decline and soon after record labels felt the financial downfall.

Record companies have started to cut back on album sales and push only singles. Taking advantage of mp3’s, iTunes, and ringtones sales. But we all know that artist that are out there now like the Jay-Z’s and the T.I.’s are going to sell there millions of album sales but what about the new artist what do they get? Are they going to sign a single deal meaning a record label signs you for that one popular single you have out to get royalties from ringtones, mp3’s and iTunes sales as well as radio play and if your lucky you get to push a second single and if that one is successful as well then you get the “360 Deal”.

Now what is a “360 Deal”?

The music industry executives came together to figure out how they were going to recoup the money back that were lost to the illegal downloading. The “360 Deal” is a record contract that the artist and the record company sign in agreement that the artist will split a percentage sales of all touring, merchandise, endorsements, songwriting, publishing, etc. Now the labels are promising that they are going to add more marketing and promotions to the new artist and that they are the one’s that is taking the financial risk by signing the new artist to these types of deals. So at the end of the day who are these deals made for the record companies or the artist? 

http://musicrowlawyer.typepad.com/music_row_lawyer/2007/12/the-360-record.html