Billy Bragg writes in today’s Media Guardian about the role record companies play in the age of digital music.

Billy correctly states that “A band which records and promotes its own music via the internet could sign a deal directly with iTunes, keeping all of the profits and retaining ownership of copyright.”, but then goes on to write that “it can surely be only a matter of time before the first truly independent artist breaks through via the internet without relying on a record company to market them”.

Here’s a ‘heads-up’ on this. It’s already happened. Most of my music recommendations come from Last.fm, and I buy many albums from iTunes. Artists that I’ve discovered in this way, and whom are ‘truly independent’ include (with their own Record Company or Publisher in brackets).

• Alex_Q, (Farb-ton Records)
• Astrid Williamson, (Incarnation Records)
• Ellen Allien, (bpitchcontrol)
• Emm Gryner, (Dead Daisy Records)
• Sarah Fimm, (Sarah Fimm)
• Sarah Slean, (Sarah Slean)

The true issue here is publishers. Because publishing is where money is made. Many record contracts require artists to sign over publishing rights, usually resulting in the copyright to the songs going with that contract. It’s possible to assign publication to a record company’s publishing division, without such restrictions. However, the detail is in the contract. In this regard iTunes is only about distribution.

It appears that the overall purpose of the article is to frown upon MTV’s terms and conditions, which includes, apart from the usual ‘perpetuity and gratis’ commercial exploitation of submitted music, the waiving of all moral rights to that material. This is pretty shocking. Send us your stuff, and it’s ours, forever.

So, what if MTV breaks an artist? If it’s one song, it’s one song that you no longer own. Is that big deal? Isn’t this fair exchange? What if you’re one of the (possibly thousands) of contributors who MTV rejects. Well, they’re probably not going to want to ‘exploit’ you – unless MTV is in the game of selling reject compilations. Furthermore, sometimes you need a leg-up, even major label support, to get you started. No worries, if you’re not a success, which in major-label-speak happens about 97% of the time, you’ll get dropped, so you can start again – this time on your own terms.