I need details on how independent artists work and make money. Why do they have to make their own label? Is a label different from a recording company and a distribution co? Lastly, do the girls still make money if i stream wfh, worth it, down, dont say you love me in spotify and youtube?//
Music anon: Ultimately if a musician is truly independent they are not label bounded sometimes even if it's their own. They are on their own completely and are working freelance. Making money truly being independent is difficult because you need money for everything to get going in your career and you're getting paid so little in return for your work. Being a musician is an investment and unless you completely do everything yourself from making the artwork, playing all the instruments, recording and mixing on your own, etc... there's lots of expenses coming out of your pocket. Now being an independent artist you do not have to make your own label and as mentioned you're not truly independent if you're signed to a label. In recent times more artists who are in contracts with major labels (Example: Columbia Records which is under Sony Music Entertainment) are starting to make their own labels as a way to be an owner of their music. This tactic is to help them make better profit off their music and actually be an owner of it so the major label isn't taking all the ownership along with most profits. However, lots of these artists labels are still under the major label meaning they're still in contracts that connect to the bigger label and they are not actually independent. For example, Laurens independent label Attunement Records is still under AWAL records which is owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Also being on an independent label doesn't mean you're an independent artist. Independent label typically means the label is not operating with funding or distribution from major record labels. Running an actual independent label is very challenging and expensive because you're not getting support from the major label companies. In these major artists case their "independent labels" are still connected to their major label and they're still under contracts with those major labels. Their "independent label" isn't really the most independent, it's just giving the artist a little bit more say in things than usual and allowing them the chance to have ownership of their music so they can make more money from it. So how they're making money similar to how they would be with just being on the major label from music sales, touring, merch, etc.. Except now they have released their music through a label they own so they're gonna profit a lot more off their music sales than they would if their label completely owned the music.
To answer your question about the differences, recording company is the big companies that own the labels (Examples: Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group). Record labels are under the recording companies and sign the artists and manage that end (Examples: Columbia Records, Atlanta Records, Epic Records). Distribution companies are the companies that help sell the music and get it out their. Record labels and recording companies are either partnered with distribution companies or usually recording companies act as their own distributors like Sony. So example: Atlantic Records for them it's recording company- Warner Music Group, record label- Atlantic Records, distribution company- WEA International for outside US and Atlantic Records Group for inside the US.
Lastly in regards to streaming music, yes the girls will make money if you stream their music also called royalties. However because their music particularly when they were in 5H is owned by the label and not them plus they weren't credited as song writers or producers for a good amount of their discography they won't make much money from it as they could because those royalties are going down and being paid to a long line of people before it reaches them. So they're getting whatever cut of money is given to them after that long line of
people who are the owners gets their cut and then it's split amongst people who are credited for the song like the performers, song writers, and producers, so whatever you get after the royalties are split up is what you get and usually it's really not much. I've seen artists who've gotten royalty checks from music streaming/buying sent to them from their labels that were as small as $6. Also just to add as extra, when it comes to music released onto streaming platforms (Ex: Spotify, Apple Music, etc..) in order to get them released onto those platforms you have to go through music distributors (Ex: Tunecore, CD Baby) you can't just upload it to them like uploading a music video on YouTube. Those you can either upload for free and the distributor takes sometimes about 15% (can be less or more) of your profits from your music or you pay them fees regularly and pay them a sum of money per release in order to be able to keep them from taking a percentage of profits from your releases through them. I'd like to add as well streaming isn't that great of a way to make money off your music especially if you're completely independent because it takes a sum of streams to equal one dollar. Takes over 200 streams on a song on Spotify to make a $1 that stream number used to be much higher.
