In the music industry, a record label can be a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. It is more commonly the company that manages such brands and trademarks; coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, promotion, and enforcement of copyright protection of sound recordings and music videos; conducts A&R; and maintains contracts with recording artists and their managers.

Generally, recorded music needs a record label in order to be widely known, reviewed, heard on media outlets such as radio or television, and in order to be available to buy in stores, although the Internet has changed this to some extent.

Record labels may be small, localized, and "independent", or they may be part of a large international media group, or somewhere in between. The largest 4 record labels are called major labels.1 A sublabel is a label that is part of, but trades under a different name from, a larger record company.

The term "record label" originally referred to the circular label in the center of a vinyl record that prominently displayed the manufacturer's name, along with other information.

Imprint

When a label is strictly a trademark or brand, not a company, then it is usually called an imprint, a term used for the same concept in the publishing industry. An imprint is sometimes marketed as being a project, unit, or division of a record label company, even though there is no legal business structure associated with the imprint.

Major labels today (Big Four)

1. Warner Music Group
2. EMI
3. Sony BMG (partnership)
4. Universal Music Group

Major labels prior to 2004 (Big Five)

1. Warner Music Group
2. EMI
3. Sony Music
4. BMG Music
5. Universal Music Group (Polygram absorbed into UMG)

Major labels prior to 1998 (Big Six)

1. Warner Music Group
2. EMI
3. Sony Music
4. BMG Music
5. Universal Music Group
6. Polygram

Record labels are often under the control of a corporate umbrella organization called a music group. A music group is typically owned by an international conglomerate holding company, which often has non-music divisions as well. A music group controls and consists of music publishing companies, record (sound recording) manufacturers, record distributors, and record labels. As of 2005, the "big four" music groups control about 70%

Independent

Record companies and music publishers that are not under the control of the big four are generally considered to be independent (indie), even if they are large corporations with complex structures. Some prefer to use the term indie label to refer to only those independent labels that adhere to an arbitrary, ill-defined criteria of corporate structure and size, and some consider an indie label to be almost any label that releases non-mainstream music, regardless of its corporate structure.