Choon: The Label Guide

This little write-up is aimed to be a comprehensive guide for small independent record labels looking to expand their reach, or adopt new technologies. After reading this, you should have a basic understanding of what is possible as a label when joining the Choon-platform, and what is expected in order to comply with Choon’s Terms of Service.

“One thing that we’re never going to do is, give money to one organisation with the promise that they will pass it on to an artist.’’ Gareth Emery

First of all, to get this absolutely straight up front and not waste anyone’s time, mentioning this at the end: If you have a label, but don’t own the full rights to release and distribute the tracks however you want, because you have a bigger parachute label taking care of this, don’t bother reading any further. If you are a label that pays artists a one-off fee to own a track, so you can get 100% of the revenue, also, stop reading now. Choon is not for you. Why not? Because Choon wants to be different from the current music industry. They first and foremost want to give artists a fair payment. Secondly, they want to help listeners to connect and support their favourite artists directly, Choon is not a service to help out (big) labels in the first place.

“It’s even the case with record labels. So we’ve had a bunch of record labels that have said: We love what you’re doing, we’d love to have our catalogue on there. And we said, yes sure, we are totally fine with that. But… You have to make a smart record contract, on Choon, between you and your artist. So you will get your money at the same time as your artist gets it.’’ Gareth Emery

How does it work

Alright, still here. I guess you must run an independent record label that wants to share revenue as equal as possible with your artists. Also, you own all distribution rights, for the original tracks, remixes and if relevant, have clearance on all samples or harmonies used in the releases. This is how you can approach things at the moment of writing:

Option 1, Smart Record Contract for everything (most transparent):

• Sign up with an artist-account (as a user-account cannot upload any content)
• Make sure everyone you want to include in the Smart Record Contract (SRC) has an account on Choon. Either let them sign up, or create it yourself for future re-assignment.
  *Create an artist-account for the original artist of the record you are going to upload, and if needed, for the remixer. (Unless they have a Choon-account already.)
• Upload the song.
• Create an SRC like shown below. (This one is used as an example, splits and names are fictitious and can be altered to fit the personal situation for your label).

You could even do this for every department of your label, for instance promotion, design etc. Bear in mind that you need separate accounts to do this, and that royalties will be distributed over these accounts. In order to create (artist) accounts without ending up in a waiting line to be accepted, you can use the referral code in the label-account to do so, or ask [email protected] to provide the required amount of artist-codes (cleanest).

Option 2, Smart Record Contract made easy (clean method):

• Sign up with an artist-account (as a user-account cannot upload any content)
• Create an artist-account for the original artist of the record you are going to upload, and if needed, for the remixer. (Unless they have a Choon-account already.)
• Upload the song.
• Create a simple SRC like shown below. (This one is an actual example used on Choon).

(Sidenote: For both Option 1 and 2 it is mandatory to transfer ownership of the accounts created for artists and other parties included in the smart contract, when they join Choon. The safest (but a little more time consuming) approach is to wait until they have all created their own accounts.)

Option 3, Smart Record Contract with re-upload (not recommended):

• Sign up with an artist-account (as a user-account cannot upload any content)
• Upload the song.
• Create an SRC with 100% revenue for the label.
• Ask the original artist and remixer to join Choon in the future.
• When joined, take down the first upload, and re-upload the track again, with a new SRC, where you also put in the original artist this time.

(Sidenote: You will never lose the amount of coins earned on a deleted track. However, you lose all stats on that particular track. The new upload will be seen as a new track. So no chart or stream history will be saved in the public view but they will still be available in the label’s backend account. Also, this method can look slightly unfair, as the label already starts earning 100% revenue, which doesn’t comply with fair shares towards artists.)

Signing Choon-artists

So you’ve come across some awesome tracks, that haven’t had much traction yet, and you’d actually like to include them in your label catalogue. Best thing to do, is to contact the artist. An easy way should be if they have social links on their profile. Another method could be to leave a ‘Tip’ for the artist, which allows you to add a comment on Choon itself, about your interest to sign the track and to promote it.

If the artist agrees, let the artist remove the track from their personal account. Re-upload the track on your label account, with the artist in the SRC and the track will then show up on both the artist and label profiles. This is necessary as SRC’s cannot be changed once a track has earnt royalties. So, the artist is unable to add the label to the existing SRC, unless the track hasn’t yet had any streams. (But if you listened to it already, it has…)

How to stand out as a label

It’s actually pretty easy to reach fans nowadays. Middlemen are less and less important, as independent artists have a fanbase of their own at their fingertips. With a click of a button they can run their own advertisements, setup merch shops and interact with fans of their music. Signing up to a label means signing away rights. Up until a point that some labels even ask the artist to deliver a professionally mastered track, artwork, invest upfront in a video clip and if necessary, have mechanic licenses for sample-use arranged. So, if an artist needs to arrange this all by themselves, why would they even sign up to a label?

Is the promotion a label can do worth signing away at least 50-80% of the rights to a track which artists composed themselves? You know the answer to that question best yourself. And even if your label has some leverage in terms of promo, this could change over time, considering an artist could really get a fair payment on Choon. So, in order to sign a Choon-artist, my recommendation would be to stand out in a certain way. Of course, a label can offer attractive revenue splits, but if a label would take care of these points, it could help in convincing the next wave of independent artists to join. Bearing in mind that at the end of the day, if they wouldn’t join a label, they still have to do or arrange these things on their own, within their own budget and towards their own social network.

Duties a label can probably do better:

• Selecting the right recognisable sound for the label (which attracts listeners)
• Promote the music amongst DJs / Radio / Socials / Public (through promo channels, existing mailing lists etc.)
• Promote tracks in releases of mix-compilations.
• Get tracks on other platforms as well (Choon does not exclude use of other services)
• Create video content or music videos for the music
• Arrange the final mastering of the track
• Artwork / Cover art (also advised for consistency across several releases)
• Arranging clearance on sample-use / harmonies
• Securing the right remixers / collaborators (vocals a.o.) for the release (bigger network) or select them from the label pool or network

Why sign up as a label?

Providing fair payment, and cutting out middlemen, could also prove to be beneficial for labels. As you work with artists directly, there is no need to get a manager in-between. If an artist wants that, that’s a part they should take care of. If revenue is rewarded better, this means your label gets higher pay-outs as well. Also, promotion can be a hard business, even for labels. As Choon is a developing platform right now, early adoption could make you stand out.

I’ll be honest and have to say I had never heard of Sound Avenue before I joined Choon, despite it being quite a well known label. They are active on Choon, promoting artists in playlists, but also run contests for remixes and releases, and it is hard not to come across them on the Choon-platform. Sound Avenue is a very good example of putting Choon to a use and it’s that which made myself (and others) follow them, recognizing their quality and listening to their music, far beyond the borders of the Choon-platform.

For the platform it would be great to see more labels join too as the catalogue Choon offers to listeners would expand quicker, and with (guaranteed) quality music. A label could also bring more attention and fans with it as well. Seems like a win-win (-win) for everybody (labels, Choon, artist) involved. So, don’t wait it out, get your artists and yourself signed up for an account and join us. The best day to get involved is yesterday!

© 2018, Marco Svarda / Arkroom

Sound Avenue on Choon: https://choon.co/artists/soundavenue/
Source-video for used quotes: Gareth Emery @ Icon Collective Production School, Burbank, California, 16th Jan 2018

Sidenotes:

• I am an independent artist releasing my music on the Choon-platform. I am not part of the Choon-team, in any way.
• This guide is an example of how to make use of Choon, as a label. It is based on my own experience with the platform, and communication from Choon. This article should never be used as professional business- or investment advice.
• At the moment of writing Choon is still in Beta, which means the platform is still developing. Over time, there are lots of plans to make it even more interesting for a label to join. Services such as selling tickets and merchandise directly on the platform are on the roadmap. As well as integrating services towards physical (music) content and marketing/PR. More about this can be found in the Choon whitepaper.