Major Label Records

The music industry is dominated by four multi national corporations:

- Universal (that co-developed Vevo, a site designed for music videos inspired by Hulu.com, which similarly, will allow for free, ad-supported streaming of music videos and other music content).
- Sony Music
- Warner Bros.
- EMI

   

These are refered to as 'The Majors'. The majority of these are backed by conglomerates with stakes in other industries such as; film, TV and electronics.

Most of these 'Majors' own, or license, a series of smaller subsidiary companise in order to reach different kinds of audiences in different kinds of genre. Collumbia, Island, Syco, RCA, Virgin are all examples of major-independant companies.

  












Independants

There are a huge number of small companies with little or no finantial connections to the majors.

These companies often concentrate on a small number of acts, with specialised niches in the industries.

These are called 'Independants'. An examle of a highly successful independant is 'Domino Records'.

It is often that record labels begin as independants, but then are bought by a major and then become major-independants.