Sources of data about labels?

Anyone got a somewhat dependable source for info about labels?
An industry site or something?
A lot of the labels that I come across are either not in the database or are very hard to disambiguate as there is so little entered about them.
And finding info about the label on google often fails too.

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One of the first places I would suggest to check is Discogs. They have info on all sorts of labels, obscure and not.

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What I’d like is :grin: an encyclopedia of labels showing a graphic of the logo/imprint, their addresses, their history, their inter-relationships, their personnel, their model of business and their major genres.

I sometimes think that this information would accumulate quicker on MB if we gathered more of the business/company/corporate information in the database as that would bring people with such knowledge and knowledge of labels here.

I’m not aware that an encyclopedia like that exists. Not to beat a dead horse, but Discogs does store pretty much all of that (not sure about business models though).

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I must be editing in the outer-darkness too often then.
I get lots of results like this
from Discogs label searches. (Those included releases are all only licensed from Fenix Entertainment according to an hour or more of Googling.)

It’s not always perfect, but it’s the closest to a database I can name.
The only other similar sites I can name are more specialized databases, e.g. Encyclopedia Metallum.

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Found this
http://www.playlistresearch.com/recordindustry.htm

And wonder if MB would get further quicker and easier if the commercial aspect of the vast majority of music recording products manufactured was treated as an organising element.
This might mean including licenses, contractual signings, company mergers etc in the database.

A lot of recorded music comes off these company trees.
Useful and important relationships may only become apparent if we know the commercial context.

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I’ve found unconfirmed histories of specific companies/labels in google groups and a blog comment.
They both seemed to produce useful associations between people, companies, labels, releases and dates.
Though as already stated, the info is unconfirmed.

I’ve made one annotation that is probably too long. And possibly misleading. However it is the best info we have around this label (and other labels that are mentioned in the history too I suspect).

What are the views of others?

Found an “official” list of labels and their “responsible record company” for the Nordic and Baltic region from NCB (Nordic Copyright Bureau).
Nordic Copyright Bureau: lists of 3rd party labels

NCB is a “Rights Society” "We collect license fees from the music users and ensure that rights holders get their rightful share of royalties. NCB also administers mechanical rights for the Baltic performing rights societies."
I wonder if other Rights Societies also provide lists of their 3rd party labels?

Do labels need to have MB releases in order to remain in the database?
Or will an annotation of source and link-relationship to their “responsible record company” preserve them even if otherwise blank?

Edit: I’m thinking this would be better contributed to the existing info about labels on the Wiki.

If it’s only an annotation, that will not be enough to prevent it from a ModBot cleanup—but any single relation will (incl. a URL relationship). There’s no requirement for a Label to have Releases associated. (E.g., n©b that you mention yourself have no Releases.)

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