The looming death of the major labels

The majors have been on life support for the last several years. Now a viable alternative business model appears to have risen, which just might finish off the majors for good.

Under the Polyphonic model, bands that receive investments from the firm will operate like start-up companies, recording their own music and choosing outside contractors to handle their publicity, merchandise and touring.

Instead of receiving an advance and then possibly reaping royalties later if they have a hit, musicians will share in all the profits from their music and touring. In another departure from tradition in the music business, they will also maintain ownership of their own copyrights and master recordings — meaning they and their heirs can keep earning money from their music.

Artists retaining ownership of their copyrights and masters is a particularly welcome development. I've never quite understood why major labels think little enough of certain albums that they let them go out of print, and yet still hoard the albums to themselves, not letting the rights revert to the artists who have an interest in releasing it themselves. One example is the Mekons' brilliant Rock & Roll, which was released by A&M in the late 1980s but flopped commercially (did A&M really think an idiosyncratic band like the Mekons could become a mainstream success?) then let it languish, keeping it out of print for over ten years before an independent label finally picked it up and re-released it. For years I owned only a worn cassette dub of the album (not wanting to pay a fortune for a less-than-pristine used copy of the original release) and only recently acquired the re-release - which in itself was superior to the original, as it included two good tracks from the original UK release that had been deleted from the original U.S. release.

I've always felt that labels should be allowed to retain album rights only if they keep it in print and readily available - if they let an album go out of print, the rights should immediately revert to the artist. And in this digital age, there's really no excuse for albums being out of print - the labels could easily make them available online (through iTunes or whatever) at little to no additional cost. All of which may become a moot point if the Polyphonic model takes hold. Here's hoping.