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NeptunesMp3 D.I.Y. Music Distribution
Common perception of a 'Record Label' is the major record labels in Los Angeles or New York that have signed all of the major players of today. These major record labels, which include Sony, Universal, Geffin and Capitol Records are major corporations with hundreds of millions of dollars behind them, allowing them to properly fund all of the world's biggest artists. In the eyes of an emerging artist, a 'record deal' has always been the big picture, and it has always been envisioned as a contract with one of these major players.

But as most people know, the major music industry has all but failed. With the death of popular radio, the introduction of online social networks and digital music retail stores such as iTunes, Rhapsody and Amazon, and the fact that every major release in the past 5 years has leaked to the internet weeks before the release day, the ideologies of the past are no longer relevant. Major label companies are now in a transition period, and are struggling to come up with the end-all-be-all solution to all of their problems.

Enter Indie (short for Independent) Labels. With Major labels only making up a very small percentage of the world's music label population (for a comparison, think about the US elite upper class, and how they only make up 10 percent of the nation's population). An indie label contract has become a new goal for many- a more realistic goal at that. Becoming an Indie Label signed artist has become a movement, a trend, some may even say a fad. But indie labels have created a true niche for themselves and their business has been booming. So much so, in fact, that many of the Major Labels are now beginning to embrace the Indie Label methods in order to achieve future growth as a company. While indie labels can't offer the kind of funding for artists that the major labels can, they do offer many other benefits that may be more important to the artist.

So, what make a record label 'indie'? The answer is quite simple. An Indie Label is any music recording label that operates without the funding of the organizations of the major music labels. Typically, major labels are global in scale and operate their own distribution and publishing companies. Indie Labels, however, tend to either work with other smaller companies, either in long term partnerships or in smaller contractual relationships for their distribution and publishing, although many indie labels do pay for the distribution services that major labels have to offer. The interesting thing about indie labels is that they can range so greatly in size. Unlike major record labels, who are all fairly similar in size, indie labels make up any sort of record label business that is in between the world's biggest, major labels, and the 'record labels' that consists of a guy with a computer and a single mic' in his basement.

But if indie labels cannot afford to produce the kind of large scale business that the Major Labels can, why would it be a new goal for many emerging artists? There are many benefits for artists who sign with an indie label, it is just a matter of understanding the benefits of each type of label and determining what is more important to you as the artist. Once those have been examined, chose a path (with signing with a major label or an indie label) and achieve it:

Independent "indie" Music Record Labels: