More money more power

When record labels sign an artist they may spend a lot of money on that artist to get them to sign with them, but once the contract is signed the record companies have total control of everything that the artist can and can’t do musically.  Once that contract is signed the artist loses their freedom and they no longer have control of their music career.

http://www.soundonsound.com/

In the article called “Record Contracts Explained” by Richard Salmon he explains how the record contracts work and how lenient they are with all of their legal binds when offering a contract to a certain artists.  There are many legal binds that the artists have like that they aren’t aloud to record at any other label for any reason without permission from their label.  This can create a lot of problems for artists because they lose a lot of their freedom in their music because they only record and the label can do whatever else they want to it when they are editing it.

Another thing that the record companies can do is that they can tell you what to do with your music.  They tell you what kind of music to make and what type of songs they want, which really limits the artist.  They also tell them who to talk to in the media and what guest appearances on certain shows or radio station they should and will do.  This really limits the artist and what they can do.  They are very separated from anyone their record label wants them to be separated to.  I think this isn’t really fair because the record companies control their life while they are signed to them. This is part of the reason why the record companies actually spend so much money on the artist.  They do that because they know that there is nothing the artist can do without the company helping so they legally bind them with the contract.  

Many of the artists also don’t have control of the music they are making which is also really unfair.  While the artists is still making music whether they are with that record company or not the original label that made the song keeps full rights of the song and it is technically not even the artist’s.  This is really unfair in my opinion because the person who has the talent doesn't even get any rights to the song that they made regardless of what they do.  This again shows why the labels are willing to spend so much money on an artist in order to try and make some money from them.
Next I plan to research why the record companies give the artists no rights.