Companies

From The Unofficial Discogs Wiki

just a page for the different company/Societies types which could be listed on a release.

Mechanical Rights Societies and Performing Rights Societies

Mechanical Rights Societies

http://www.biem.org

"Mechanical rights societies exist in most countries. They license the reproduction of sound recordings. Their members are composers, authors and publishers and their clients are record companies and other users of recorded music. They also license mechanical aspects of the downloading of music via the Internet.

Every time a CD, audio cassette or LP containing protected musical works is made, the producers require a license from the owner of the works and they must pay royalties for each copy they manufacture and sell. The mechanical rights societies issue the licenses and collect the royalties which they distribute to the owners of each work."

Performing Rights Societies

for example:
ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) http://www.ascap.com
SESAC (Society of European Stage Authors and Composers) http://www.sesac.com
BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) http://bmi.com
GVL (Gesellschaft zur Verwertung von Leistungsschutzrechten) http://www.gvl.de (not listed on records, but responsible for the labelcodes in Germany)

Discussion: possibly a new field for Submission form? - YES/NO?
- problem for US releases: the PRSs can be track based
e.g. http://www.discogs.com/release/182832
-> publisher (PRS)
A1 Delyles Music (BMI)
A2 Leeds Music (ASCAP), PAP Music (ASCAP), Boogie Nite Music (SESAC)

Music Publishing Companies

http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/rep_pub/reports/1988/fulltext/224c03.pdf

Recording Companies

Distributors

Manufacturer/Pressing Plants

Recording Studios

A recording studio can be anything from someones bedroom to a large and famous business such as Abbey Road Studios. A recording studio can be an official company, or it can just be a name someone made up for a collection of wires in their garden shed.

Discussion

As far as Discogs is concerned, any studio credits (Recorded At rather than Recorded By) should be eligable for inclusion into the database under whatever new company structure we end up with.

Mastering Studios

Mastering studios are the next stage on from recording studios for the audio. They can do a number of tasks, all generally to do with organising and polishing the audio ready for duplication at the manufacturing and pressing plants.

Mastering studios can be considered under the same umbrella as recording studios for the purposes of Discogs, and treated the same way.