 What's up everybody once again it's brand man Sean and we got to go over four types of deals that every artist should know. And this question was inspired by one of the questions in the comments they were asking about record deals versus distribution deals. We're going to get into all of that as a matter of fact starting with number one distribution deals one of the more popular deals that you are hearing about today. So what exactly is a distribution deal? Well let's just talk about distributing your music getting it out there through different channels that's Apple Music, Spotify, Target, the radio. Those are different routes of getting your music out there. So what distribution deals really handle is really getting your music out there right and helping promote that music. When you think about a distribution deal traditionally it's also known as a P&D pressing and distribution deal. So if you can recall back in the days where people really really listened to CDs they were pressing CDs distributing those out to the retail stores. Well now we have digital so even though you can use tunecore and some of these other people to distribute your music that's why they're called distributors these distribution deals still entail those but you still get the benefits of retail and radio like I mentioned before but it can also cover additional types of promotion right like posters and even videos of some source. Now what are the cons of distribution deals? If you're somebody who's looking for a lot of money up front distribution deals rarely have money for you up front. There is no cash advance which means a distribution deal is pretty much useful to somebody who does not already have some sense of an established fan base and also a well planned strategy to promote that music and get it out to that fan base. Now there are quite a few artists who are signing distribution deals earlier and you know the landscape is changing so I'm not saying it's completely 100% useless for you but it's not going to be a game changer like you might think. Not immediately at least. Now number two the traditional record deals. The traditional major label deals that so many artists think about and so many artists have dreamed about are actually broken down like this. One you oftentimes do not maintain your masters. Two you are given a nice cash advance and they try to boost your presence up out of the gate but you don't really see those kind of deals these days with the artist that is you know just straight from the dirt. But with all that being said they give you all that money they want that money back. That money is not yours to have it is a loan. Major labels in terms of these deals should be looked at as a bank. They want their money back and that's why they get some royalties. That's why they also look to have masters oftentimes so they can use that as a bit of an insurance just in case maybe even your immediate royalties doesn't bring the money they want. It's musical real estate. Number three the production deal. Now this is you being signed by a producer if you're an artist. So what you see oftentimes in this kind of agreement is a major label or a label of some sort gives a producer a deal for them to develop artists under an umbrella. So if you're a producer and you know you got skills and you have a good eye for talent and people really have faith that you can develop this talent and make some hits with them that's what these deals are for. Now when you think about it from an artist's perspective what I've heard or even just seen online and blogs and things like that is it's pretty common to have a 50-50 split between the producer. But with that being said the money that gets made is at first a 50-50 split between the producer's company and the label. So let's just say there's $100. The label gets $50 and then the producer's company is distributed another $50 and then you and that producer might split that $50 into 25-25. But of course it's really gonna depend on what gets negotiated between you and the producer with that split looks like and there's occasions when that producer or whoever that company owner is in that sort of deal might also own the masters. That could be wholly or partially once again up to negotiation. Now for number four we're talking 360 deals. Y'all have heard quite a bit about 360 deals so I'm not gonna go super deep into them but is once again that idea that the label also gets to profit from pretty much every place that you profit from not just music sales album sales you know all that good stuff your merch your touring I don't know maybe even TV appearances all that good stuff a lot of artists do not like that especially older artists because they weren't used to hearing something like that what I'm making all this money I can't believe that record labels are stealing from these new artists by taking this other money that we never had to pay them that's cool I get it but just to bring a little bit of logic into that situation it was really created in the time where record labels were having a hard time finding how to make money because the music industry was changing dramatically at that time so in some ways it was just risk insurance I'm not saying you should sign a 360 deals but from a business standpoint there are some things that I can understand especially if the artist has no buzz whatsoever particularly within that time period I think 360 deals will continue to evolve actually not evolve really kind of go extinct because as the industry evolves and people are coming up with more innovative ways you write these boutique labels these marketing labels all these other types of business models is not going to be as necessary and just to be frank it's had a bad or at 360 deals have a bad brand so even if people would like to get a 360 deal they might not just because there's a negative connotation and they feel like they shouldn't so they're just gonna have to rebrand the product just like they did with those variable great mortgages that kind of help cause the recession but anyway that's a whole another conversation if you liked this video go ahead and like button if you like your mouse will share it and if you're not subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe button