Roles of Publishers, Record Labels, and Producers

Abstract

The traditional music publisher roles of evaluating promising songwriters and composers; persuading vocalists to record acquired music; marketing songs to radio and music television disc jockeys; negotiating synchronization rights for television and movie music; and collecting royalties payments have changed with the advent of digital technologies. The distinction between a music publisher and a record label can be confusing because the terms are often used interchangeably. To complicate matters further, the record labels can be subsidiaries of the major publisher, and the record label may perform some of the functions of a publisher as shown in Tables 8.1 and 8.2.