Music Industry Investigation

Major Record Label: Sony Music Entertainment 

Sony Music Entertainment was initially found in 1929. Then, it was founded as American Record Cooperation which is now no longer in business, but who's legacy is now part of Sony Music Entertainment.

Following ARC's acquisition through CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), in 1938, the company was renamed to Columbia Recording Cooperation. However, in 1966, it was again reorganised and renamed to CBS Records in association with CBS.

In 1987, SCA (Sony Cooperation of America) bought CBS Records and renamed it to Sony Music Entertainment in 1991.

- SME is part of the 'Big Three' music cooperation conglomerates alongside Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.

- As of 2012, the yearly income of SME was $6 billion.

- SME contains and owns additional pre-eminent labels within the conglomerate. These are: Columbia Records, Epic Records and ECA Records. it also has genre-limited record labels, which are specifically concerned with the production and distribution of specific genres. These include: (Classical) Sony Masterworks, (Country) Sony Music Nashville, (Latin) Sony Music Latin and (Christian/Gospel) Kingdom Life Records and Provident Label Group.

- Artists in SME include: Aerosmith, Adele, Alicia Keys, Beyonce, Kings Of Leon, Justin Timberlake, Foo Fighters, John Mayer, Jimmy Hendrix and One Direction.

Minor Record Label: Domino Recording Company

Domino Recording Company was initially founded in 1993. It is an indecent record label based in South London. Although being an independent British-centred label, it has additional side-labels which release and distribute music in other parts of the world, but still under the wing of the DRC. There is a German division called Domino Deutschland which focuses about the release of music from DRC in Germany and also one in France named Domino France which is centred around the release of music from DRC in France.

- When DRC was first founded, success was not shortly-followed. It was only until DRC started signing a bigger list of artists that success began to occur. Artists such as Arctic Monkeys, The Kills and Franz Ferdinand helped increase the credibility of the label and have now aided in DRC becoming one of the most successful and longest running indecent labels in the UK.

- DRC also owns additional label imprints. These include: Geographic Music, Double Six Records, Weird World Record Company, Ribbon Records and Rekords Rekords.

- DRC's main genre focus is Indie Rock and Rock.