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| Founded | 1994 in Encino, California |
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| Founder | Marc Geiger, Keith Yokomoto, Steve Rennie, Don Muller |
| Headquarters | , United States |
Key people | James Graf (CEO) Augustine Wong (President) |
| Website | artistdirect |
ARTISTdirect is an American online digital media entertainment company.
Founded in 1996, it owns several websites, including artistdirect.com and artistdirectinterviews.com. These websites are a group of affiliate websites offering multimedia content, music news and information, communities organized around shared music interests, music-related specialty commerce and digital music services.
Artistdirect began as an online music retailer and distribution company. It hosted the Ultimate Band List (UBL), a database with information on over 600,000 artists, concerts, record labels, and other music-related resources. [1] In 1997, it partnered with the band Blink-182 to create Loserkids.com, an online store and community site for fans of the music and fashion of cutting-edge Alternative rock, punk, metal, and hard rock artists. [1] It featured merchandise from various brands including Hurley, Dickies, and Ben Sherman. In the early 2000s Artistdirect combined the database of the Ultimate Band List and online store with free audio and video streams, music news, album reviews, and movie trailers.[ citation needed ]
In 2006, Artistdirect re-launched the UBL.com site to focus on independent and unsigned bands, and helping them to be "discovered". [2] [ failed verification ] According to Media Metrix, the Artistdirect Network averages 12.4 million unique hits. [3] [ failed verification ]
In 2005 Artistdirect acquired MediaDefender, a company with a 90% share of the market for protecting against online copyright infringement. [4]
In 2009, Artistdirect acquired MediaSentry, another company that focuses on battling online copyright infringement. [5] The company will operate with two divisions, one for its copyright protection products, and another for its music-related web sites.[ citation needed ]
In August 2009, the company filed a "Form 15" with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, under which it will "go dark" and cease to make public its financial information. The company shares will also cease trading on the major stock exchanges. [6]
In March 2015, the business of ARTISTdirect was acquired by PSI Capital, Inc.[ citation needed ]
In August 2002, Marc Geiger launched his own iMUSIC label as a separate entity to ARTISTdirect Records but still under the Artistdirect umbrella. [7] It also relied on BMG distribution and on Ted Field's ADR marketing and promotion staff.[ citation needed ]
The basic idea of iMUSIC was to enter into label and distribution partnerships with long established artists (with sizable fan-bases) who no longer had major label deals.[ citation needed ]
In 1999, they created the ARTISTdirect Online Music Awards. With 20 categories, the winners were selected by viewers via online. The first ever ceremony was held at House of Blues having performances of No Doubt, Cypress Hill and Chris Isaak among others. Madonna, Eminem, The Beatles and Ricky Martin were among the first winners. [8] The following edition in 2000, had expanded their categories in rock, pop, urban/hip hop and electronica. [9]
Napster was a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared on the service was typically encoded in the MP3 format. As the software became popular, the company encountered legal difficulties over copyright infringement. Napster ceased operations in 2001 after losing multiple lawsuits and filed for bankruptcy in June 2002.
A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing, promotion, and enforcement of copyright for sound recordings and music videos, while also conducting talent scouting and development of new artists, and maintaining contracts with recording artists and their managers. The term "record label" derives from the circular label in the center of a vinyl record which prominently displays the manufacturer's name, along with other information.
Capitol Records, LLC is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note in the United States in 1942 by Johnny Mercer, Buddy DeSylva, and Glenn E. Wallichs. Capitol was acquired by British music conglomerate EMI as its North American subsidiary in 1955. EMI was acquired by Universal Music Group in 2012, and was merged with the company a year later, making Capitol and the Capitol Music Group both distributed by UMG. The label's circular headquarters building is a recognized landmark of Hollywood, California.
The Orchard Enterprises NY, Inc., doing business as The Orchard, is an American music and entertainment company, specializing in media distribution. It is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, based in New York City. In 2019, the company sold off its film and television division, which was renamed 1091 Media.
MP3.com was a web site operated by Paramount Global publishing tabloid-style news items about digital music and artists, songs, services, and technologies. It is better known for its original incarnation as a legal, free music-sharing service, named after the popular music file format MP3, popular with independent musicians for promoting their work. That service was shut down on December 2, 2003, by CNET, which, after purchasing the domain name, established the current MP3.com site.
Music Canada is a non-profit trade organization that was founded 9 April 1963 in Toronto to represent the interests of companies that record, manufacture, produce, and distribute music in Canada. It also offers benefits to some of Canada's leading independent record labels and distributors. It was known as the Canadian Record Manufacturer's Association until 1972 and the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) until 2011.
TVT Records, originally Tee-Vee Toons, was an American record label founded by Steve Gottlieb in 1984. Initially created to release the Television's Greatest Hits series of classic TV theme tune compilations, the label would expand into rap, industrial rock, and electronic music amassing 25 Gold, Platinum, and Multi-Platinum albums over the course of its 24-year history.
Sire Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Records.
MediaDefender, Inc. was a company that fought copyright infringement that offered services designed to prevent alleged copyright infringement using peer-to-peer distribution. They used unusual tactics such as flooding peer-to-peer networks with decoy files that tie up users' computers and bandwidth. MediaDefender was based in Los Angeles, California in the United States. As of March 2007, the company had approximately 60 employees and used 2,000 servers hosted in California with contracts for 9 Gbit/s of bandwidth.
Victory Records is a Chicago-based record label founded by Tony Brummel. It operates a music publishing company called "Another Victory, Inc." and is the distributor of several record labels. It has featured many prominent artists including Thursday, Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Taking Back Sunday, Bayside, Streetlight Manifesto, and A Day to Remember.
A recording contract is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording act, where the act makes an audio recording for the label to sell and promote. Artists under contract are normally only allowed to record for that label exclusively; guest appearances on other artists' records will carry a notice "By courtesy of ", and that label in question may receive a percentage of sales through publishing.
MediaSentry was a United States company that provided services to the music recording, motion picture, television, and software industries for locating and identifying IP addresses that are engaged in the use of online networks to share material in a manner said organizations claim is in violation of copyright. Their most notable customers were several trade associations including the Motion Picture Association of America and International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
Festival Records, later known as Festival Mushroom Records, was an Australian recording and publishing company founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1952 and operated until 2005.
Arts and media industry trade groups, such as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), strongly oppose and attempt to prevent copyright infringement through file sharing. The organizations particularly target the distribution of files via the Internet using peer-to-peer software. Efforts by trade groups to curb such infringement have been unsuccessful with chronic, widespread and rampant infringement continuing largely unabated.
Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas-Rasset was the first file-sharing copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States brought by major record labels to be tried before a jury. The defendant, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, was found liable to the plaintiff record company for making 24 songs available to the public for free on the Kazaa file sharing service and ordered to pay $220,000.
Maverick was an American entertainment company founded in 1992 by Warner Music Group and run by recording artist Madonna, as well as Frederick DeMann and Veronica "Ronnie" Dashev. It included a record label, a film production company, book publishing, music publishing, an adjacent Latin/Spanish language record label, and a television production company.
Loomis & the Lust are an independent California pop rock band based out of Santa Barbara. The band is most well known for having filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against singer Jessie J over the song "Domino" in 2012.
Torrent poisoning is intentionally sharing corrupt data or data with misleading file names using the BitTorrent protocol. This practice of uploading fake torrents is sometimes carried out by anti-infringement organisations as an attempt to prevent the peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing of copyrighted content, and to gather the IP addresses of downloaders.
Believe is a global digital music company headquartered in France. Believe has several brands including TuneCore, Nuclear Blast, Naïve, Groove Attack, Play Two and AllPoints.
Round Hill Music is an American music publishing company founded in 2010 by Josh Gruss, Richard Rowe, and Neil Gillis. The company operates a music publishing division, a sync and royalty administration, a music production library business, a record label and label services division, and also a Nashville songwriter services group with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Nashville and London.
