The right U.S. partner can build an American audience on top of a home market. The wrong one can tie up a catalog for years. Here is what to check before you sign anything.
Choose on three things, in this order. The record: has this partner done what you need, for artists like you, with results you can check? The team: who exactly will work your release, every week, in America? The contract: who owns what, for how long, at what cost, and how you leave.
Most partners look the same from the outside. A manager quoted in Billboard's guide to picking a distributor said "the only thing that makes them different are the people within the building and within the teams." The questions below are how you find out who those people are.
"US label partner" covers several different businesses:
Our guide to label services vs a record deal explains how the last three differ on ownership, term and money. Decide which one you are shopping for before you compare offers. A distributor and a label are not priced, staffed or judged the same way.
Ask for specific U.S. results and the artists they belong to. Chart positions, radio adds, television bookings and sold-out dates are public, so check them. A credit that cannot be checked should count for nothing.
An international pop act needs a different team than an American indie rock band. Ask who on their roster came from your market, in your genre, at your stage. For K-pop and Asian pop, ask about English-language releases, U.S. radio and how they plan around comebacks and tours at home.
A partner with too many priorities may not have room for yours. Ask how many releases the team is working in your release month.
Get names, not departments. Who pitches the playlists, who calls the radio stations, who books the press. Ask to meet them.
A serious partner can describe the plan: the song, the date, which lanes open first, and what each side does. A vague answer now usually means a vague campaign later.
Ask how often you get numbers and what is in them: streams, radio, press, spend. A partner who reports on a fixed rhythm is easier to hold to a plan.
Contract terms are always negotiated deal by deal, and this is general practice, not advice on any one agreement.
This is the question that matters most. In a traditional deal, the UK Competition and Markets Authority found, the label often owns the copyright "in perpetuity" or holds licences that "could last in the region of 20 years" (CMA findings). With label services, artists typically keep ownership. Know exactly which one you are signing.
Billboard notes that even a distribution deal may require "a period of exclusivity with the distributor." Check the territory too. A U.S. deal that quietly covers the world can collide with your home label's rights.
Headline rates are only the start. A UK law firm's guide to distribution agreements warns that "a deal that looks cheap on headline commission may allow wide deductions, reserves, withholding for suspected fraud or delayed settlement." Ask what is deducted before your share is calculated, and what is recouped from it.
Hypebot's piece on owning your masters but losing control makes the point that "legal ownership does not translate into practical control if someone else oversees everything else." It lists the questions to settle early: where the royalty statements live, "who can authorize a takedown or transfer," and "what is the exit process if the relationship changes." Its advice: "Define the exit process before you need it."
Our own record is public and every result belongs to the artist named: BTS as the first K-pop group at U.S. Top 40 pop radio, Monsta X's All About Luv in the top five of the Billboard 200 and their run as the first K-pop group on the Radio Tour, and Tiffany Young's Best Solo Breakout win at the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards. The detail is on our Monsta X case study and our about page. We work by invitation, and we say plainly when a project is not ready for a given step.
A record of checkable U.S. results for artists like you, a named team that will work your release each week, and a contract that is clear on ownership, term, exclusivity, cost and exit.
Who owns the recordings and for how long, how exclusive the deal is and in which territories, what is deducted or recouped before your share, how and how often you get reports, and how you leave.
No. A distributor can get your music onto U.S. streaming services. A U.S. label or label services partner is for an artist who wants an American campaign behind the release: radio, press, television and playlists.
International labels and artists can see how we run U.S. label services, or start on the U.S. launch page.