When Don Rose stood to speak Monday night to the 75 independent record label executives gathered at Los Angeles’ Knitting Factory club, he had almost an embarrassment of good news.
Earlier that day, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had settled with Sony BMG Music Entertainment over charges of “payola”–essentially that the major label had paid radio stations to play its music. Independent labels had long complained that these under-the-table practices had kept their music disproportionately off the airwaves.
“I think we went from being invisible to being very quickly recognized in the market,” said Peter Gordon, president of Thirsty Ear Recordings. “If you look at the confluence of factors in the market, you have the majors retreating and trying to develop a strategy, and you have indies being able to expand in the market.”
With a direct effect on small labels’ often-fragile bottom lines, the pay hikes from Microsoft and Apple’s iTunes will be immediately welcomed. The news comes after years in which independent labels had complained about being treated as second-class citizens by the big digital music services, and Rose’s A2IM had formed in part to lobby for more equity with the big labels.
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